"Helen of Troy" by Chelsea Castonguay

A quiet dropping of her sandles to the floor

Two shadows danced across the marble

and with a soft breath of consent

Her marriage bed she betrayed
Just wife to Menelaus she was no more

Menelaus waited for the wind to blow

Hoping Helen would remain chaste

Across the seas he would go

for his Beloved wife, when wicked

Eros showed her in another’s embrace

Great Menelaus adverted his eyes and

announced the war would go on

For now there was a score to settle

With good Priam’s son.

The blood of the virgin daughter on the altar

drying in the rising wind saw the Greeks

off to Troy to save the fair Helen

The tears of the sacrificed child drying

on her father’s cheeks

For the face of one woman

thousands died on the beach

For Great Menelaus’ wife

men died, Achilles welcoming them

to the Elysian Fields just beyond their reach

Ten years past, her children became grown

Fair Helen stood on the walls of Troy

She could see Menelaus leading his troops

and her sons who were no longer boys

Helen’s desire for Menelaus and Paris

only made her beauty more known

When finally Priam’s great city of Troy fell

and Helen was rescued in the night

From the life she considered a paradise and a hell

Menelaus bore her away of a ship

with sails that shown bright

And home in Greece, Helen lay

still beside her great Lord

whom she could bend to her will

She prays for the souls wandering the world

Knowing their stories will remain untold