Wednesday, 21 October 2026

'We have forgotten Paris...'

 I reckon it's time for a poem. Here is one by Janet Lewis (wife of the eminent poet and critic Yvor Winters), who is perhaps best remembered for her classic novel The Wife of Martin Guerre, but was also an accomplished poet, active across six decades.
In 'Helen Grown Old', she wonders what became of Helen of Troy, reunited (in Homer's account) with Menelaus, after the Trojan war and the death of Paris...

Helen Grown Old

We have forgotten Paris, and his fate.
We have not much inquired
If Menelaus from the Trojan gate
Returning found the long desired
Immortal beauty by his hearth. Then late,

Late, long past the morning hour,
Could even she recapture from the dawn
The young delightful love? When the dread power
That forced her will was gone,
When fell the last charred tower,

When the last flame had faded from the cloud,
And by the darkening sea
The plain lay empty of the armèd crowd, 
Then was she free
Who had been ruled by passion blind and proud?

Then did she find with him whom first she chose
Before the desperate flight,
At last, repose
In love still radiant at the edge of night, 
As fair as in the morning? No one knows.

No one has cared to say. The story clings
To the tempestuous years, by passion bound,
Like Helen. No one brings
A tale of quiet love. The fading sound
Is blent with falling embers, weeping kings.

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