Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

When Helen lived (Author: William Butler Yeats)

p.39

1. WE have cried in our despair
   That men desert,
   For some trivial affair
   Or noisy, insolent sport,
   Beauty that we have won
   From bitterest hours;
   Yet we, had we walked within
   Those topless towers
   Where Helen walked with her boy,
   Had given but as the rest
   Of the men and women of Troy,
   A word and a jest.