When Paris lay at Helen’s side,
and she was lightning on his limbs,
few doubted such authority
would finally tame him.

And he was hers in bed, in war,
in revelry, in argument;
her femaleness drenching his wits
with endless want.

So what becomes of long devotion
when suddenly death takes the lover?
A harvest lost? Is passion mortal?
Does promise weather?

It’s said that every hundred years
Helen returns to tend his urn,
that in chill walls of Trojan bronze
the dust yet burns.

Moran, Moore. "When Paris Lay at Helen’s Side." The New Compass: A Critical Review 4 (December 2004) [http://www.thenewcompass.ca/dec2004/moran.html]