e?' did say.
Loathing him, I must go. He had his way,
As well he might who paid that goodly price,
Honour, truth, courage, all, to have his vice:
The which forsook him when those fair things fled;
For though my body hath lain in his bed,
My heart abhors it. And now in truth I wis
My lord's true heart is where my own heart is,
The two together welded and made whole;
And I will go to him and give my soul
And shamed and faded body to his nod,
To spurn or take; and he shall be my God."
Whereat made virgin, as all women are
By love's white purging fire which leaves no scar
Where all was soiled and seamed before the torch
Of Eros toucht the heart, and the keen scorch
Lickt up the foul misuse of vase so fair
As woman's body, Helen flusht and fair
Leaned from the wall a fire-hued seraph's face
And in one rapt long look gave and took Grace.
Deep in her eyes he saw the light divine,
Quick in him ran fierce joy of it like wine:
Light unto light made answer, as a flag
Answers when men tell tidings from one crag
Unto another, and from peak to peak
The good news flashes. Scarcely could he speak
Measurable words, so high his wild thought whirled:
"Bride, Goddess, Helen, O Wonder of the World,
Shall I come for thee?"
Her tender words came soft
As dropping rose petals on garden croft
Down from the wall's sheer height--"Come soon, come soon."
And homing to the lines those drummed his tune.

FIFTH STAVE

A COUNCIL OF THE ACHAIANS: THE EMBASSY OF ODYSSEUS

Now calleth he assembly of the chiefs,
Princes and kings and captains, them whose griefs
To ease his own like treasure had been lent;
Who came and sat at board within the tent
Of him they hailed host-father and their lord
For this adventure, in aught else abhorred
Of all true men. He sits above the rest,
The fox-red Agamemnon, round his crest
The circlet of his kingship over kings,
And at his thigh the sword gold-hilted swings
Which Zeus gave Atreus once; and in his heart
That gnawing doubt which twice had checkt his start
For high emprise, having twice egged him to it,
As stout Odysseus knew who had to rue it.
Beside him Nestor sat, Nestor the old,
White as the winter moon, with logic cold
Instilled, as if the blood in him had fled
And in hi