All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
...
You are as gold
as the half-ripe grain
that merges to gold again,
as white as the white rain
...
Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare
as Hesperus, nor yet so great a star
as bright Aldeboran or Sirius,
nor yet the stained and brilliant one of War;
...
Did her eyes slant in the old way?
was she Greek or Egyptian?
had some Phoenician sailor wrought her?
...
I should have thought
in a dream you would have brought
some lovely, perilous thing,
orchids piled in a great sheath,
...
Was Helen stronger than Achilles even 'as the arrows fell'? That could not be, but he recognised in her some power other than her legendary beauty.
...
Helen
All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the lustre as of olives
where she stands,
and the white hands.
All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.
Greece sees, unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.