WIDOWED ANDROMACHE
Reading edition
“Full in the morning sun I saw him first And followed him through meadows, flower-massed, All his steep, toilsome ways, I, too, traversed; After his battles all his wounds I nursed, From our tent gazing to the cities passed. “Then, to the Trojan walls, where battle burned And every altar had a bloody rim, I trod his ardent footsteps, though I yearned For fields so free; but until back he turned My only way was onward, after him. “The summons came while I was following, true, Eager, alert, though bruised by thorn and stone. Had he but paused to tell me, ere he drew His cloak about him, what I was to do, I would have kept the path, yea, all alone! “But he was silent, answering not my woe. He muffled him against my prayers and tears. I raise my arms, hung with the links of years, Hung with his broken chains, my right to show But—o’er his Unknown Paths, I may not go!”