When Helen Lived

    We have cried in our despair
    That men desert,
    For some trivial affair
    Or noisy, insolent, sport,
    Beauty that we have won
    From bitterest hours;
    Yet we, had we walked within
    Those topless towers
    Where Helen walked with her boy,
    Had given but as the rest
    Of the men and women of Troy,
    A word and a jest.