The cloud roll'd back from Helen's memory:
She saw the city of the rifted hill,
Fair Lacedaemon, 'neath her mountain high;
She knew the swift Eurotas running by
To mix his sacred waters with the sea,
And from the garden close she heard the cry
Of her beloved child, Hermione.

XXX.

Then instantly the horror of her shame
Fell on her, and she saw the coming years;
Famine, and fire, and plague, and all men's blame,
The wounds of warriors and the women's fears;
And through her heart her sorrow smote like spears,
And in her soul she knew the utmost smart
Of wives left lonely, sires bereaved, the tears
Of maidens desolate, of loves that part.

XXXI.

She drain'd the dregs out of the cup of hate;
The bitterness of sorrow, shame, and scorn;
Where'er the tongues of mortals curse their fate,
She saw herself an outcast and forlorn;
And hating sore the day that she was born,
Down in the dust she cast her golden head,
There with rent raiment and fair tresses torn,
At feet of Corythus she lay for dead.