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Helen Of Troy On The Isle Of Rhodes
by Ella Wheeler WilcoxThe battles ended, ardent Paris dead,
Of faithful Menelaus long bereft,
Time is the only suitor who is left:
Helen survives, with youth and beauty fled.
By hate remembered, but by love forgot,
Dethroned and driven from her high estate,
Unhappy Helen feels the lash of Fate
And knows at last an unloved woman's lot.
The Grecian marvel, and the Trojan joy,
The world's fair wonder, from her palace flies
The furies follow, and great Helen dies,
A death of horror, for the pride of Troy.
* * *
Yet Time, like Menelaus, all forgives.
Helen, immortal in her beauty, lives.