Much wiser give no target to these archers; Wear the plain armour of a charioteer. AHAB. I will, Duke Jehu. Lie you there, my purple, Till I return to-night with victory. At sunset every night the Queen and I Go through the citron gardens to the kennels, To feed our Hittite wolf-hounds with raw flesh. To-night when we go feed them, we will go, As conquerors of Syria, through the city. [_Exit_ AHAB. JEHU. Right, my good Lord. Yes, you shall be disguised; But this bright bird within the quiver here Will pierce through your disguise before to-night, And you shall feed the wolf-hounds, never fear; So shall your Queen, with royal flesh and raw. (_He puts on the King’s purple_) Oh, out in the desert, my spear and my bow. Will win me whatever I need; The wine and the oil that another did grow And the horse that another did breed. So away for the desert.... Ay, I have trotted in your bodyguard Too long, by God! CURTAIN. SEVENTH CHORUS ROSE-FLOWER. Queen Helen left those women of the wood, She clambered from her horse and stood again Even on the very hill where Troy had stood, Where tamarisk shrubs and broom-sprigs and wild grain Sprouted from bronze and rib-bones of men slain. There was the palace where her love had been; Stones blackened by the fire and misplac’d By roots of vines that fed upon the paste Of all the pride where she had lived a queen. Troy was no more than weeds and fire-flaked stone, But still the straits ran roaring to the south, And still the never-quiet winds were blown With scent of meadow-sweet from Simois’ mouth. MOON-BLOSSOM. Yet no Greeks were moving on the beaches, No galleys of the Greeks came oaring in, Nor did lancer scouts or parties ride the whin, Bringing in or checking convoys from the river’s upper reaches Where the forest pines begin. And the forges were all gone, and all the fires Of the camps and burnings of the dead. And the grinding of the bronze-shod chariot-tyres Rang no more. Both in city and on shore There were no more shouted orders, clash of arms, or marchers’ tread. ROSE-FLOWER. All was manless now, uncared for; both the streams had left their courses. There was marsh where corn had grown of old, and there, where Paris lay, Was an apple-tree with fruit which fed the now wild Trojan horses, That with bright teeth bit each other; Earth made Greek and Trojan brother, All the passion that had raged there now was dead and gone away. MOON-BLOSSOM. Then she cried, “I caused the quarrel that brought death along these beaches, I alone made Troy this ruin, I alone, from haste of youth, From a women’s bent, that listens to a lie, if it beseeches; Now I stand here old and friendless, having nothing but the truth.” ROSE-FLOWER. There she stopped, for there before her, in the ruins, stood a stranger; “This is changed