(Like a lion’s whelp reared as a pet and turning afterwards to a great beast of prey,)

  Lo, once there was a herdsman reared
    In his own house, so stories tell,
  A lion’s whelp, a milk-fed thing
  And soft in life’s first opening
  Among the sucklings of the herd;
    The happy children loved him well,
  And old men smiled, and oft, they say,
  In men’s arms, like a babe, he lay,
Bright-eyed, and toward the hand that teased him
  Eagerly fawning for food or play.

  Then on a day outflashed the sudden
    Rage of the lion brood of yore;
  He paid his debt to them that fed
  With wrack of herds and carnage red,
  Yea, wrought him a great feast unbidden,
    Till all the house-ways ran with gore;
  A sight the thralls fled weeping from,
    A great red slayer, beard a-foam,
High-priest of some blood-cursed altar
  God had uplifted against that home.

(So was it with Helen in Troy.)

  And how shall I call the thing that came
    At the first hour to Ilion city? 
  Call it a dream of peace untold,
  A secret joy in a mist of gold,
  A woman’s eye that was soft, like flame,
    A flower which ate a man’s heart with pity.

But she swerved aside and wrought to her kiss a bitter ending, And a wrath was on her harbouring, a wrath upon her friending, When to Priam and his sons she fled quickly o’er the deep, With the god to whom she sinned for her watcher on the wind, A death-bride, whom brides long shall weep.

(Men say that Good Fortune wakes the envy of God; not so; Good Fortune may be innocent, and then there is no vengeance.)

  A grey word liveth, from the morn
    Of old time among mortals spoken,
  That man’s Wealth waxen full shall fall
  Not childless, but get sons withal;
  And ever of great bliss is born
     A tear unstanched and a heart broken.

But I hold my thought alone and by others unbeguiled; ’Tis the deed that is unholy shall have issue, child on child, Sin on sin, like his begetters; and they shall be as they were.

But the man who walketh straight, and the house thereof, tho’ Fate
  Exalt him, the children shall be fair.

(It is Sin, it is Pride and Ruthlessness, that beget children like themselves till Justice is fulfilled upon them.)

But Old Sin loves, when comes the hour again,
   To bring forth New,
Which laugheth lusty amid the tears of men;
Yea, and Unruth, his comrade, wherewith none
May plead nor strive, which dareth on and on,
  Knowing not fear nor any holy thing;
Two fires of darkness in a house, born true,
  Like to their ancient spring.

But Justice shineth in a house low-wrought
  With smoke-stained wall,
And honoureth him who filleth his own lot;
But the unclean hand upon the golden stair
With eyes averse she flieth, seeking where
  Things innocent are; and, recking not the power
Of wealth by man misgloried, guideth all
  To her own destined hour.