Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Helen of Troy by Andrew Lang
page 94 of 130 (72%)
She kiss'd, she kiss'd the hair of wasted gold,
The hands that ne'er her body should enfold;
Then slow she follow'd where the bearers led,
Follow'd dead Paris through the frozen wold
Back to the town where all men wish'd her dead.

LXV.

Perchance it was a sin, I know not, this!
Howe'er it be, she had a woman's heart,
And not without a tear, without a kiss,
Without some strange new birth of the old smart,
From her old love of the brief days could part
For ever; though the dead meet, ne'er shall they
Meet, and be glad by Aphrodite's art,
Whose souls have wander'd each its several way.

* * * * * *

LXVI.

And now was come the day when on a pyre
Men laid fair Paris, in a broider'd pall,
And fragrant spices cast into the fire,
And round the flame slew many an Argive thrall.
When, like a ghost, there came among them all,
A woman, once beheld by them of yore,
When first through storm and driving rain the tall
Black ships of Argos dash'd upon the shore.

DigitalOcean Referral Badge