When Helen Lived
When Helen Lived - meaning Summary
Beauty Won from Suffering
The poem reflects on how people lament that others abandon them for trivial pleasures, yet acknowledges human weakness and ordinary responses to beauty. The speaker imagines being inside the mythical setting of Helen of Troy, recognizing that even those who endured hardship would likely behave like everyone else — offering only casual words and jokes. It registers a resigned acceptance that attraction and social habits can override moral exceptionalism.
Read Complete AnalysesWe 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 waked with her boy, Had given but as the rest Of the men and women of Troy, A word and a jest.
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