His Memories

    We should be hidden from their eyes，

    Being but holy shows

    And bodies broken like a thorn

    Whereon the bleak¹ north blows，

    To think of buried Hector

    And that none living knows.

    The women take so little stock

    In what I do or say

    They‘d sooner leave their cosseting²

    To hear a jackass bray³；

    My arms are like the twisted thorn

    And yet there beauty lay；

    The first of all the tribe lay there

    And did such pleasure take—

    She who had brought great Hector down

    And put all Troy to wreck—

    That she cried into this ear，

    ‘Strike me if I shriek⁴.’