But I must tarry with the winter hard,
And with the bitter memory of pain,
Although the Spring be fair in Joyous Guard,
And in the gardens glad birds sing again!



PISIDICE



The incident is from the Love Stories of Parthenius, who preserved
fragments of a lost epic on the expedition of Achilles against
Lesbos, an island allied with Troy.


The daughter of the Lesbian king
Within her bower she watched the war,
Far off she heard the arrows ring,
The smitten harness ring afar;
And, fighting from the foremost car,
Saw one that smote where all must flee;
More fair than the Immortals are
He seemed to fair Pisidice!

She saw, she loved him, and her heart
Before Achilles, Peleus' son,
Threw all its guarded gates apart,
A maiden fortress lightly won!