TWO POEMS
THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION
Daintily the women of Syracuse
Hold their perfume bottles to their noses
And peer down into the quarries.
They are fine women to look at
With eyes that can pick out a sail among running breakers,
Knowing as well as the men all the good points of a horse,
Why such a team failed at the Olympic games
And such another won by a chariot length—
Trained also in poetry and drama, with a provincial enthusiasm,
And showing a tendency to play the grand lady,
Be carried hither and thither in their litters,
School their strong hill-born limbs to a pretended languor,
And force themselves to faint upon occasion.
Daintily the women of Syracuse
Hold their perfume bottles to their noses
And peer down into the quarries.
A great many of the prisoners are still alive—
Those over there are probably only sleeping;
The dead they seem to have piled up together.
The keen clear eyes of the Syracusan women
Take in the details, how the men hold themselves,
What elegance they show even in starving.
To the Athenians, they in turn seem goddesses,
Against the sky on the straight quarry walls—
Those tall, poised women, infinitely far,
Arouse their pride. They do not ask for pity:
It is enough they have an audience
To whom to play their final act of death.
