They hurried to the feast,
The warrior and the priest,
And the gay maiden with her jewelled brow;
The minstrel’s harp and voice
Said “Triumph and rejoice!”—
One only mourned!—many are mourning now!
“Peace! startle not the light
With the wild dreams of night!”—
So spake the Princes in their pride and joy,
When I, in their dull ears,
Shrieked forth my tale of tears,
“Woe to the gorgeous city, woe to Troy!”
Ye watch the dim smoke rise
Up to the lurid skies;
Ye see the red light flickering on the stream;
Ye listen to the fall
Of gate, and tower, and wall;
Sisters, the time is come!—alas, it is no dream!
Through hall, and court, and porch,
Glides on the pitiless torch
The swift avengers faint not in their toil:
Vain now the matron’s sighs,
Vain now the infant’s cries;—
Look, sisters, look! who leads them to the spoil?
Not Pyrrhus, though his hand
Is on his father’s brand;
Not the fell framer of the accursèd steed;
Not Nestor’s hoary head,
Nor Teucer’s rapid tread,
Nor the fierce wrath of impious Diomede.
Visions of deeper fear
To-night are warring here;—
I know them, sisters, the mysterious Three:
Minerva’s lightning frown,
And Juno’s golden crown,
And him, the mighty Ruler of the sounding sea!
Through wailing and through woe
Silent and stern they go;
So have I ever seen them in my trance:
Exultingly they guide
Destruction’s fiery tide,
And lift the dazzling shield, and point the deadly lance.
Lo, where the old man stands,
Folding his palsied hands,
And muttering, with white lips, his querulous prayer:
“Where is my noble son,
My best my bravest one—
Troy’s hope and Priam’s—where is Hector, where?”
Why is thy falchion grasped?
Why is thy helmet clasped?
Fitter the fillet for such brow as thine!
The altar reeks with gore;
O sisters, look no more!
It is our father’s blood upon the shrine!
And ye, alas! must roam
Far from your desolate home,
Far from lost Ilium, o’er the joyless wave;
Ye may not from these bowers
Gather the trampled flowers
To wreath sad garlands for your brethren’s grave.
Away, away! the gale
Stirs the white-bosomed sail;
Hence! look not back to freedom or to fame;
Labour must be your doom,
Night-watchings, days of gloom,
The bitter bread of tears, the bridal couch of shame.
Even now some Grecian dame
Beholds the signal flame,
And waits, expectant, the returning fleet;
“Why lingers yet my lord?
Hath he not sheathed his sword?
Will he not bring my handmaid to my feet?”
Me too, the dark Fates call:
Their sway is over all,
Captor and captive, prison-house and throne:—
I tell of others’ lot;
They hear me, heed me not!
Hide, angry Phœbus, hide me from mine own!