From Leuke: or the White Isle

I·1

I am not nor mean to be
the Daemon they made of me;
going forward, my will was the wind,

(or the will of Aproodite
filled the sail, as the story told
of my first rebellion;

the sail, they said,
was the veil of Aphrodite),
and I am tired of the memory of battle,

I remember a dream that was real;
let them sing Helena for a thousand years,
let them name and re-name Helen,

I can not endure the weight of eternity,
they will never understand
how a second time, I am free; ....

iv

O the tomb, delicate sea-shell,
rock-cut but frail,
the thousand, thousand Greeks

fallen before the Walls,
were as one soul, one pearl;
I was asleep,

part of the infinite,
but there is another,
resilient as fire--Paris? Achilles?

vi

A sharp sword divides me from the past,
yet no glaive, this;
how did I cross?

coast from coast, they are separate;
I can recall the skiff,
the stars' countless host,

but I would only remember
how I woke to familiar fragrance,
late roses, bruised apples;

reality opened before me,
I had come back;
I retraced the thorny path

but the thorns of rancour and hatred
were gone--Troy? Greece?
they were one and I was one,

I was laughing with Paris;
so we cheated the past,
I had escaped Achilles.

## ii

Who will ever forget Helen?
forever the swirling foam
threatens the ship's keel,

for Pallas remembered
insult before her altar,
Ajax and the Maiden Cassandra;

the sea would revenge the wrong,
the sea would take its toll,
remorseless, with Victory

as a mocking echo, from shoal
and the straits and the ground-swell;
one Priestess counted more

than all the host and the ships,
floundering and tempest-driven;
she had given the heroes rest,

but to these, she was pitiless;
'did I miss glorious death on the Walls'
(they cried) 'to be swept

by the waves to ignoble death?
can no prayer save? Pallas--'
but the sea answered with shock on shock

of thundering breakers,
till the goddess cried, 'enough,
now bear the remnant home';

will these forget Helen?
or will Oenone, one of the many
thousand-thousand lost?

who will forget Helen?
not Paris, feverish, with the wild eyes
of Oenone watching his death.

## iii

Who will forget Helen?
as she fled down the corridor,
the wounded sentry still had breath

to hiss, 'adultress',
who will forget the veil,
caught on a fallen pilaster,

the shout, then breathless silence
after the gate fell,
silence so imminent,

I heard the very stuff rip
as she tore loose and ran;
who will forget Helen?

why did she limp and turn
at the stair-head and half turn back?
was it a broken sandal?