Whose wrath, they deem'd, had verily waxed hot
Against the painful race on earth that trod,
And in God's hand was Helen but the rod
To scourge a people that, in unknown wise,
Had vex'd the far Olympian abode
With secret sin or stinted sacrifice.

* * * * * *

XI.

The days grew into months, and months to years,
And still the Argive army did delay,
Till folk in Troia half forgot their fears,
And almost as of old were glad and gay;
And men and maids on Ida dared to stray,
But Helen dwelt within her inmost room,
And there from dawning to declining day,
Wrought at the patient marvels of her loom.

XII.

Yet even there in peace she might not be:
There was a nymph, OEnone, in the hills,
The daughter of a River-God was she,
Of Cebren,--that the mountain silence fills
With murmur'd music, for the countless rills
Of Ida meet him, dancing to the plain, -
Her Paris wooed, yet ignorant of ills,
Among the shepherd's huts, nor wooed in vain.