THE LAST VISION OF HELEN
by: Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943)
- Argument--Helen, after the fall of Troy, departs to Egypt with ghostly companions, as in the old tale. She encounters the Sphinx and a marvel is wrought upon her.
- easureless sand ... interminable sand ...
- The smooth hide of that yellow lion, Earth,
- Ruffled a little and was dark again
- Beneath the descending torrents of the night,
- Plunging like cobalt from the cliffs of the sky,
- Blotting the stiff wedge of each pyramid
- With the slow gurgle of a rising wave,
- A wave burning with stars....
- The Sphinx alone
- Couched on her forepaws like a sleepy hound
- Under the weight of a caress of rock
- And smiled her woman's and chimera's smile
- Inexorably, drowned with the savage dark.
- The black tide filled the heavens up and ceased,
- A little tongueing flame ran on the sand
- Bright as a fire of paper, swift and light
- As a bird's restless eyes. It rose. It bloomed,
- An angry dream before the Sphinx's feet,
- The exhalation of a furious thought,
- Tall as the ghosts of Heaven's battlements,
- The apparition that had once been Troy!
- A girl went out in the summer skies,
- (The dice lie white for the throwing!)
- A girl went out in the summer skies
- And the sunlight laughed as it kissed her eyes!
- (And the wind of Fate is blowing!)
- She was ruddy and gold as a changing leaf
- When gilded Autumn gathers the sheaf.
- She was lily and pale as a sleeping moth
- When the full moon bleaches the skies like cloth.
- The grass was glad to be under her shoe,
- The poppy proud to be flour unto
- The silvering dance of her feet like dew!
- ... But her lord walks chill as a cloud of snow
- Where the kings of the earth are bending the bow.
- They are roaring the fame of the flying dart,
- But he whispers low, in a place apart,
- With the evil ice of his freezing heart.
- "Helena, Helena, mouth of wine,
- Two more days for your sun to shine!
- Helena, Helena, mouth of musk,
- Two more days and I make you dusk.
- Two more nights on your silky bed,
- And your lover over it, bloody and dead,
- And your body broken as I break bread!"
- His lips are writhing, sucking and cold,
- His hands are twitching like trees grown old,
- He shivers as if he had trod on mold.
- The Golden Queen at her anchor strains.
- (Sails on the sapphire, snowing)
- Paris walks on the deck like a man in chains.
- (And the wind of Fate is blowing.)
- He wastes in his love like leaves in a flame,
- But his mind is a spear in a dauntless game,
- And the face of his doom has a girl's soft name.
- The fifty sailors are whetting their swords.
- The brown sun beats on the tarry boards.
- And Helena skims by the rolling sand
- And waves with the fleck of a foam-white hand.
- And the blood of Youth pounds hot in the throat
- As the long oars lash from the lunging boat.
- Richly she came through the leaping green,
- Like the shrine of a god, like a sun first seen,
- And they cried "Hurrah for the Golden Queen!"
- The white sails soar like a rising gull,
- The water spins by the speeding hull.
- She smiles with her chin cupped into her hand
- At the drowning shadow of fading land
- --And Paris shakes like a torching brand.
- And Paris crushes her, breath to breath,
- And she gives him her honey of love and death.
- But chill Menelaus a Fury hath,
- He has thawed his hate to a roaring wrath!
- He is loosing his hounds on the ocean-path!
- The blooms of the years are withered and fall.
- (Dawn--and a red flame crowing)
- And Time's cracked fingers number them all.
- (And the wind of Fate is blowing.)
- And a wooden horse is trampling Troy
- As a hoof-thrust crushes a crumpling toy.
- Ruddy and gold where the torches stare
- Helena sits in her carven chair.
- Lovely and strange as a moonlit cloud--
- But her head droops down like a petal bowed.
- Beneath her the blood and the wine run deep
- --But her eyes are seas more quiet than sleep.
- The drunkards brawl and the cup goes round;
- But she gives no sign and she makes no sound.
- Red Menelaus has poured her drink;
- And she does not sip and she does not shrink.
- And her mouth is a flower that says "Depart!"
- And the hilt of a knife is under her heart.
- The kings of the world have finished their chase,
- They dash their wine in the glorious face.
- And Paris is dead in a sickly land;
- And they wrench the rings from the plume-white hand.
- They dice for her rings and the game is sweet
- And lean Menelaus is smiling sleet.
- And the captains chuckle, counting their scars,
- For the hosts of the earth have finished their wars
- And Helen and Troy are cold as the stars.
- Waves in the dusk with a sound like tears
- (And the deep tide foaming and flowing)
- Saying one name for a thousand years!
- (And the wind of Fate is blowing!)
- Like air beaten by swords, like the long cry
- Of an old trumpet harsh with rust and gold
- The ballad rose assaulting, struck and died
- Into a clamorous echo.
- The Sphinx stirred,
- Shaking the drifted moonlight from her coat
- As a dog shakes water, rising mountainously;
- Then from that drum of terrible stone, her throat,
- Rolled back her answer at the enormous sky.
- The arrow of Eros flies
- In the dark, in the trembling dark;
- Piercing and sweet is the song it cries
- And the cup of the heart its mark!
- And the cup of the heart is dust,
- And the wine of the heart is spilled.
- And the barb flings whimpering back to Lust
- With "Master, see--I have killed!"
- It was thus and thus that you were begot!
- I am Death's bright arrow! Forgive me not!
- The ribbon of Fate unreels
- In the road of the days and nights;
- There are flute-voiced airs for the dancing heels,
- But over them hang the kites!
- And the path grows dark as the laws
- And the kites drop down in a ring,
- Till a blind stag torn by the slashing claws
- Is the end of the trumpeting!
- It is there and there that your fathers rot!
- I am Destiny's halter! Unloose me not!
- The mirrow of Wisdom shines
- Like a face in a troubled pool.
- Like the eyes of a snake are its weaving signs
- To the eyes of an anxious fool.
- For the secret form of the soul
- Is there in its terror shown
- --And it rends the sight like a crumbling coal
- Till the eyes of the fool are stone!
- It was this and this that your ardor sought!
- I am Wisdom's mirror! Behold me not!
- Then, like a forgotten tumult of the heart,
- The multitude of men who died for Helen,
- Vague, terrible, wounded forms began to chant.
- Glance at us once from your sacred tower,
- Helen divine!
- The cutworm crawls in the almond-flower,
- The rats are eating the thrones of power,
- Yet glance at us once and the clouds will shower
- Our lips with wine!
- Loosen your hair to the storm again,
- To the whistling brine!
- We are very desperate men,
- Reeds when fire goes over the fen,
- Lighten our dark with your marvel then,
- Helen divine!
- Give us drink for our bitter thirst,
- Helen divine!
- bless you the thieves that each priest has cursed,
- Queen of us, queen of us, last and first,
- Flame we followed and child we nursed,
- Star at trine!
- Open the heaven of your embrace,
- Oh burning sign!
- This is the end of the bloody race,
- Whispering sea and the stars like lace,
- You gather our souls to your shining place,
- Helen divine!
- The thunder ebbed away into a sigh,
- Died into sand, was calm.
- And suddenly
- Helen of anguish, Helen of the song,
- Helen the victory on the lips of Zeus,
- Helen the princely word, the proud despair,
- The voiceless cry of the ecstatic dream,
- Shone with the radiance of a consuming wish
- Upon the desert, and stretched out her arms
- As if to take that whole great ghost of Troy,
- Pennon and panoply, champion and car,
- Back to its home, her breast.
- Would there ever be a bud
- If the sap considered storm?
- It would stay in happy mud,
- Damned and sleepy, safe and warm!
- Who would want to be a rose
- If its petals thought of snows?
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