There was a drug that Helen knew.

Dropped in the wine-cup it could take

All memory and all grief away,

And while the drinker, wide awake,

Sat in his chair, indifference grew

Around him in the estranging day.

He saw the colours shine and flow,

The giant lineaments break and change,

But all storyless, all strange.

The crystal spheres on Helen’s brow

Took and gave back the coloured world,

Yet only seemed to smile or glare

At nothing but the empty air.

The serving women crossed the floor,

Swept by a silent tempest, whirled

Into the light and through the door.

This he saw and nothing more,

While all the charities, unborn,

Slept soundly in ‘his burdened breast

As he took his heavy rest,

Careless, thoughtless and forlorn.

So strong the enchantment, Homer says,

That if this man’s own son had died,

Killed at his feet, his dreaming gaze

(Like a false~hearted summer day

Watching the hunter and his prey

At ease) would not have changed at all,

Nor his heart knocked against his side.

But far within him something cried

For the great tragedy to start,

The pang in lingering mercy fall,

And sorrow break upon his heart.