HELEN XXVI

 

High-born Helen, round your dwelling¹

These twenty years I’ve paced in vain;

Haughty² beauty, thy lover’s duty

Hath been to glory in his pain.

High-born Helen, proudly telling

Stories of thy cold disdain³;

I starve, I die, now you comply,

And I no longer can complain.

These twenty years I’ve lived on tears,

Dwelling for ever on a frown;

On sighs I’ve fed, your scorn my bread;

I perish now you kind are grown.

Can I, who loved my beloved,

But for the scorn “was in her eye,”

Can I be moved for my beloved

When she “returns me sigh for sigh?”

In stately pride, by my bedside,

High-born Helen’s portrait’s hung;

Deaf to my praise, my mournful lays

Are nightly to the portrait sung.

 

To that I weep, nor ever sleep,

Complaining all night long to her:

Helen, grown old, no longer cold,

Said, “You to all men I prefer.”

 

1 dwelling   

n.住宅，住所，寓所

参考例句：

• Those two men are dwelling with us.那两个人跟我们住在一起。
• He occupies a three-story dwelling place on the Park Street.他在派克街上有一幢3层楼的寓所。

2 haughty   

adj.傲慢的，高傲的

参考例句：

• He gave me a haughty look and walked away.他向我摆出傲慢的表情后走开。
• They were displeased with her haughty airs.他们讨厌她高傲的派头。

3 disdain   

n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑

参考例句：

• Some people disdain labour.有些人轻视劳动。
• A great man should disdain flatterers.伟大的人物应鄙视献媚者。