(ON A COPY OF THE ILIAD FOUND WITH THE MUMMY OF A YOUNG GIRL) LO! an old song, yellow with centuries! She, she who with her young dust kept it sweet; She, in some green court on a carved seat, Read it at dusk fair-paged upon her knees; And, looking up, saw there, beyond the trees, Tall Helen through the darkling shadows fleet; And heard, out in the fading river-street, The roar of battle like the roar of seas. Love, weeping, laid this song when she was dead In that sealed chamber, strange with nard and musk. Outliving Egypt, see it here at last. We touch its leaves: back rush the seasons sped; For us, as once for her, in that old dusk, Troy trembles like a reed before the blast! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE; THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 52 by PHILIP SIDNEY IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 115 by ALFRED TENNYSON TO THE EARL OF WARWICK ON THE DEATH OF MR. ADDISON by THOMAS TICKELL THE FIRST SNOW by J. B. BENTON OLD HOMES by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |