Back to Index

When Helen lived

by W. B. Yeats, 1916

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.

Published in Responsibilities, and other poems
Tags:

Any corrections or public domain poems I should have here? Email me at poems (at) this domain.