Of crimson wools: out of her loosened vest
Set on one shoulder with a serpent brooch
Fell one arm white and half her foamy breast.
And, with the breath of many a fanning plume,
That wonder of her hair that was like wine--
Of mingled fires and purples that consume,
Moved all its mystery of threads most fine--
Moved like some threaded instrument that thrills,
Played on with unseen kisses in the air
Weaving a music from it, working spells
We feel and know not of--so moved her hair:
And under saffron canopies all bright
With clash of lights, e’en to the amber prow,
Crept like enchantments subtle passing sight,
Fragrance and siren music soft and slow.
Amid the thousand viands of the feast,
And Nile fruits piled in panniers, where they vied
With palm-tree dates and melons of the East,
She waited for Marc Antony and sighed.
--Where tarries he?--What gift doth he invent
For costly greeting?--How with look or smile,
Out of love treasures not already spent
Prepares he now her fondness to beguile?
--But lo, he came between the whiles she sighed;
Scarce the wave murmurs troubling,--lo, most dear,
His galley, with the oars all softly plied,
Warned her with music distant, and drew near.
And on that night--for present,--he did bring
A pearl; and gave it her with kissing sweet:
“Would half the Roman empires were this thing,”
He said, “that I might lay them at your feet.”
Fairly then moved the magic all arrayed
About that fragrant feast; in every part
The soft Egyptian spells did lend their aid
To work some strange enamouring of the heart.
It was her whim to show him on that night
All she was queen of; like a perfect dream,
Wherein there should be gathered in one sight
The gold of many lives, as it might seem
Spent and lived through at once,--so she made pass
A splendid pageantry of all her East
Beauteous and captive,--so she did amass
The richness of each land in that one feast.
More jewelries than one could name or know,
Set in a thousand trinkets or in crowns
Each one a sovereignty, in glittering row
Numbered the suppliant lands and all her thrones.
And fairest handmaidens in gracious rank,
Their captive arms enchained with links of gold,
Knelt and poured forth the purple wine she drank,
Or served her there in postures manifold.
And beaded women of a yellow Ind
Stood at the couch, with bended hand to ply
Great silver feathered fans wherein the wind
Gat all the choicest fumes of Araby.
There in the midst, of shape uncouth and hard,
Juggled his arts some Ethiopian churl;
Changing fierce natures of the spotted pard
Or serpents of the Nile that creep and curl.
And many a minstrelsy of voice and string,
Twining sweet sounds like tendrils delicate,
Seemed to ensnare the moments--seemed to cling
Upon their pleasure all interminate.
But now at length she made them serve her wine
In the most precious goblet,--wine that shed
Great fragrance, in a goblet fair with shine
Of jewels: so they poured the wine out red:
And lo, to mark that more than any feast
And honour Antony,--or for mere pride
To do so proud a vanity, at least
The proudest, vainest, woman ever tried--
She took the unmatched pearl, and, taking, laughed;
And when they served her now that wine of worth
She cast it gleaming in; then with the draught
Mingling she drank it in their midst with mirth.
And all that while upon the ocean high,
The golden galley, heavy in its light,
Ruled the hoarse sea-sounds with its revelry--
Changing afar the purples of the night!
IV.
CLEOPATRA.
2.
When Cleopatra saw ’twas time to yield
Even that love, to smite nor be afraid,
Since love shared loss,--yea, when the thing was sealed,
And all the trust of Antony betrayed;
And when, before his eyes and in full sight
Of the still striving ships, that gleaming line
Of galleys decked for no rude field of fight
Fled fair and unashamed in the sunshine;
Then, surely, he fell down as one but blind
Through sudden fallen darkness, even to grope
If haply some least broken he might find
Of all the broken ends of life and hope.
Well, out of all his fates now was there none
But Death, the utter end; and for no sake,
Save for some last love-look beneath the sun,
Had he delayed that end of all to take!
But now, because love--armed indeed of him
With utter rule of all his destinies--
Had chosen even to slay him for a whim,
And the mere remnant was none else than his,
And since, for sure, the sorest way of death
Were but to die not falling at the feet
Of that one woman who with look or breath
Could change it if she would and make it sweet;
He chose before all fame he might have caught
With death in foremost fighting, now to cling
Upon her steps who at this last had wrought
His death-wound shameful with a lover’s sting.
O how the memories seemed to throb and start
Welling from out the unstanched past!--seemed nigh
Already opening there in all his heart
The canker wound wherewith he was to die!
And so, though she were quite estranged, and now
He held no costlier gift to win her with;
Yet, following, he would find her, and, somehow,
Lay in her hands that latest gift--his death:
For now all piteously his heart relied
On a mere hope of love dwindled to this--
To fall some fair waste moment at her side
And feel perhaps a tear or even a kiss;
Since surely, in some waste of day or night,
He thought, the face of love out of the Past,
With look of his, should rise up in her sight
And make some kind of pleading at the last.
Therefore, when all the heavy heated day
Of rowing on the waters was nigh done,
And like a track of sweetness past away
Waned on the wave the last track of the sun,
At length with scarce a sound or warning cry,
Save of the rowers ceasing from the oar,
He reached her side and prayed her pass not by;
Yea, prayed her bear him yet a little more.
But truly this well-nigh availed to move
Her--Cleopatra--with remorse for all:
She knew not of such pardon, e’en from love;
Nor craved to look upon his utter fall.
And, first, when it was told her how he came
And sought to reach the galley where she was,
She faltered for a while with fear and shame,
And bade them scarce give way to let him pass:
Only at length he showed them the plain sight
How he was broken and so soon to die;
Then they fell back all grieved and gave him right,
And scarce believed the man was Antony.
And yet he could not speak; but lay forlorn
Crouched up about the gilded quivering prow,
Three days, from morn to night and night to morn,
As one whom a sore burden boweth low.
Harshly the sea-sounds taunted him at will,
And seemed in mocking choruses combined;
Each bitter inward thought was uttered shrill
On shrieking tongues of many a thwart-blown wind.
And where with onward beak the galley clave
Full many a silver mouth in the blue mere,
The turned up whitened lips of every wave
Rang out a bitter cadence on his ear.
But first awhile his thoughts were taking leave
Sadly of Rome, and all the pageant days;
For now at length he saw and would believe
The end of triumphs and the end of praise.
And now he did survey, apart from wrath,
The various fates of men both great and small;
How little reign or glory any hath;
And how one end comes quickly upon all;
And thought if love had been--had been quite love,
One little thing in each man’s life for bliss,
Then had the grief been paid with sweet enough
And a lost crown forgotten for a kiss;
While now, as though men played with fall and rise
Of mere base monies of the common mart,
To-day they strove for love as for a prize,
To-morrow compassed fame with every art;
And one who should but half trust any face
Of seeming fame, or follow love too well,
To set his heart a moment in love’s place--
That man should fall,--yea, even as he fell.
And he thought how, since the first fate began,
The lot of every one hath been so cast:
One woman bears and brings him up a man,
Another woman slays him at the last;
While all so hardly leaguered are men’s ways
And love so sharp a snare for them contrives,
The fleeting span of one fair woman’s days
Sufficeth many heroes’ loves and lives!
--But now, when he had thought all this and more,
He lay there and yet moved not from his place;
The love of her was in him like a sore,
And he lived waiting to behold her face.
At length they drew nigh to a land by name
Tænarus; and the third day, at its eve,
In guise of one who mourneth the Queen came
Weeping, and prayed him rise up and forgive.
V.
THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.
My heart is heavy for each goodly man
Whom crownéd woman or sweet courtezan
Hath slain or brought to greater shames than death.
But now, O Daughter of Herodias!
I weep for him, of whom the story saith,
Thou didst procure his bitter fate:--Alas,
He seems so fair!--May thy curse never pass!
Where art thou writhing? Herod’s palace-floor
Has fallen through: there shalt thou dance no more;
And Herod is a worm now. In thy place,
--Salome, Viper!--do thy coils yet keep
That woman’s flesh they bore with such a grace?
Have thine eyes still the love-lure hidden deep,
The ornament of tears, they could not weep?
Thou wast quite perfect in the splendid guile
Of woman’s beauty; thou hadst the whole smile
That can dishonour heroes, and recal
Fair saints prepared for heaven back to hell:
And He, whose unlived glory thou mad’st fall
All beautiful and spotless, at thy spell,
Was great and fit for thee by whom he fell.
O, is it now sufficing sweet to thee--
Through all the long uncounted years that see
The undistinguished lost ones waste away--
To twine thee, biting, on those locks that bleed,
As bled they through thy fingers on that day?
Or hast thou, all unhallowed, some fierce need
Thy soul on his anointed grace to feed?
Or hast thou, rather, for that serpent’s task
Thou didst accomplish in thy woman-mask,
Some perfect inconceivable reward
Of serpent’s slimy pleasure?--all the thing
Thou didst beseech thy master, who is Lord
Of those accursèd hosts that creep and sting,
To give thee for the spoil thou shouldest bring?
He was a goodly spoil for thee to win!
--Men’s souls and lives were wholly dark with sin;
And so God’s world was changed with wars and gold,
No part of it was holy; save, maybe,
The desert and the ocean as of old:--
But such a spotless way of life had he,
His soul was as the desert or the sea.
I think he had not heard of the far towns;
Nor of the deeds of men, nor of kings’ crowns;
Before the thought of God took hold of him,
As he was sitting dreaming in the calm
Of one first noon, upon the desert’s rim,
Beneath the tall fair shadows of the palm,
All overcome with some strange inward balm.
But then, so wonderful and lovely seemed
That thought, he straight became as though he dreamed
A vast thing false and fair, which day and night
Absorbed him in some rapture--very high
Above the common swayings of delight
And general yearnings, that quite occupy
Men’s passions, and suffice them till they die:
Yea, soon as it had entered him--that thought
Of God--he felt that he was being wrought
All holy: more and more it filled his heart;
And seemed, indeed, a spirit of pure flame
Set burning in his soul’s most inward part.
And from the Lord’s great wilderness there came
A mighty voice calling on him by name.
He numbered not the changes of the year,
The days, the nights, and he forgot all fear
Of death: each day he thought there should have been
A shining ladder set for him to climb
Athwart some opening in the heavens, e’en
To God’s eternity, and see, sublime--
His face whose shadow passing fills all time.
But he walked through the ancient wilderness.
O, there the prints of feet were numberless
And holy all about him! And quite plain
He saw each spot an angel silvershod
Had lit upon; where Jacob too had lain
The place seemed fresh,--and, bright and lately trod,
A long track showed where Enoch walked with God.
And often, while the sacred darkness trailed
Along the mountains smitten and unveiled
By rending lightnings,--over all the noise
Of thunders and the earth that quaked and bowed
From its foundations--he could hear the voice
Of great Elias prophesying loud
To Him whose face was covered by a cloud.
Already he was shown so perfectly
The awful mystic grace and sanctity
Of all the earth, there was no part his feet
With sandal covering might dare to tread;
Because that in it he was sure to meet
The fair sword-bearing angels, or some dread
Eternal prophet numbered with the dead.
So he believed that he should purify
His body, till the sin of it should die,
And the unfailing spirit and great word
Of One--who is too bright to be beheld,
And in his speech too fearful to be heard
By mortal man--should come down and be held
In him as in those holy ones of eld.
And to believe in this was rapture more
Than any that the thought of living bore
To tempt him: so the pleasant days of youth
Were but the days of striving and of prayer;
And all the beauty of those days, forsooth,
He counted as an evil or a snare,
And would have left it in the desert there.
Ah, spite of all the scourges that had bit
So fiercely his fair body, branding it
With many a painful over-written vow
Of perfect sanctity--what man shall say
How often, weak with groanings, he would bow
Before the angels of the place, and pray
That all his body might consume away?
For through whole bitter days it seemed in vain
That all the mighty desert had no stain
Of sin around him; that the burning breaths
Went forth from the eternal One, and rolled
For ever through it, filling it with deaths,
And plagues, and fires; that he did behold
The earthquakes and the wonders manifold:
It seemed in vain that all the place was bright
Ineffably with that unfading light
No man who worketh evil can abide;
That he could see too with his open eyes
Fair troops of deathless ones, and those that died
In martyrdoms, or went up to the skies
In fiery cars--walk there with no disguise;--
It seemed in vain that he was there alone
With no man’s sin to tempt him but his own;--
Since in his body he did bear about
A seeming endless sin he could not quell
With the most sharp coercement, nor cast out
Through any might of prayer. O, who can tell--
Save God--how often in despair he fell?
The very stones seemed purer far than he;
And every naked rock and every tree
Looked great and calm, composed in one long thought
Of holiness; each bird and creeping thing
Rejoiced in bearing some bright sign that taught
The legend of an ancient minist’ring
To some fair saint of old there sojourning.
Yea, all the dumb things and the creatures there
Were grand, and some way sanctified; most fair
The very lions stood, and had no shame
Before the angels; and what time were poured
The floods of the Lord’s anger forth, they came
Quite nigh the lightnings of the Mount and roared
Among the roaring thunders of the Lord:
Yet He--while in him day by day, divine,
The clear inspirèd thought went on to shine,
And heaven was opening every radiant door
Upon his spirit--He, in that fair dress
Of weak humanity his senses bore,
Did feel scarce worthy to be there, and less
Than any dweller in the wilderness.
Wherefore his limbs were galled with many a stone;
And often he had wrestled all alone
With their fair beauty, conquering the pride
And various pleasure of them with some quick
And hard inflicted pain that might abide,--
Assailing all the sense with constant prick
Until the lust or pride fell faint and sick.
Natheless there grew and stayed upon his face
The wonderful unconquerable grace
Of a young man made beautiful with love;
Because the thought of God was wholly spread
Like love upon it; and still fair above
All crownèd heads of kings remained his head
Whereon the halo of the Lord was shed.
Ah, how long was it, since the first red rush
Of that surpassing thought made his cheek blush
With pleasure, as he sat--a tender child--
And wondered at the desert, and the long
Rough prickly paths that led out to the wild
Where all the men of God, holy and strong,
Had dwelt and purified themselves--how long?--
Before he rose up from his knees one day,
And felt that he was purified as they;
That he had trodden out the sin at last,
And that the light was filling him within?
How many of the months and years had past
Uncounted?--But the place he was born in
No longer knew him: no man was his kin.
O then it was a most sweet, holy will
That came upon him, making his soul thrill
With joy indeed, and with a perfect trust,--
For he soon thought of men and of the king
All tempted in the world, with gold and lust,
And women there, and every fatal thing,
And none to save their souls from perishing--
And so he vowed that he would go forth straight
From God there in the desert, with the great
Unearthliness upon him, and adjure
The nations of the whole world with his voice;
Until they should resist each pleasant lure
Of gold and woman, and make such a choice
As his, that they might evermore rejoice.
Thus beautiful and good was He, at length,
Who came before King Herod in his strength,
And shouted to him with a great command
To purify himself, and put away
That unclean woman set at his right hand;
And after all to bow himself and pray,
And be in terror of the Judgment Day!
He never had seen houses like to that
Fair-columned, cedar-builded one where sat
King Herod. Flawless cedar was each beam,
Wrought o’er with flaming brass: along the wall
Great brazen images of beasts did gleam,
With wondrous flower-works and palm trees tall;
And folded purples hung about it all.
He never had beheld so many thrones,
As those of ivory and precious stones
Whereon the noble company was raised
About the king:--he never had seen gems
So costly, nor so wonderful as blazed
Upon their many crowns and diadems,
And trailed upon their garments’ trodden hems:
But he had seen in mighty Lebanon
The cedars no man’s axe hath lit upon;
And he had often worshipped, falling down
In dazzling temples opened straight to him,
Where One who had great lightnings for His crown
Was suddenly made present, vast and dim
Through crowded pinions of the Cherubim!
Wherefore he had no fear to stand and shout
To all men in the place, and there to flout
Those fair and fearful women who were seen
Quite triumphing in that work of their smile
To shame a goodly king. And he cast, e’en
A sudden awe that undid for a while
The made-up shameless visages of guile.
And when Herodias--that many times
Polluted one, assured now in all crimes
Past fear or turning--when she, her fierce tongue
Thrice forked with indignation, hotly spoke
Quick wild beseeching words, wherewith she clung
To Herod, praying him by some death-stroke
To do her vengeance there before all folk--
Ah, spite of every urging that her hate
Did put into her lips,--so fair and great
Seemed that accuser standing weaponless,
Yet wholly terrible with his bright speech
As ’twere some sword of flaming holiness,
That no man dared to join her and beseech
His death; but dread came somehow upon each.
For he was surely terrible to see
So plainly sinless, so divinely free
To judge them; being in a perfect youth,
Yet walking like an angel in a man
Reproving all men with inspired truth.
And Herod himself spoke not, but began
To tremble: through his soul the warning ran.
--Then _that Salome_ did put off the shame
Of her mere virgin girlhood, and became
A woman! Then she did at once essay
Her beauty’s magic, and unfold the wings
Of her enchanted feet,--to have men say
She slew _him_--born indeed for wondrous things.
Her dance was fit to ruin saints or kings.
O, her new beauty was above all praise!
She came with dancing in shy devious ways,
And while she danced she sang.
The virgin bandlet of her forehead brake,
Her hair came round her like a shining snake;
To loving her men’s hearts within them sprang
The while she danced and sang.
Her long black hair danced round her like a snake
Allured to each charmed movement she did make;
Her voice came strangely sweet;
She sang, “O, Herod, wilt thou look on me--
Have I no beauty thy heart cares to see?”
And what her voice did sing her dancing feet
Seemed ever to repeat.
She sang, “O, Herod, wilt thou look on me?
What sweet I have, I have it all for thee;”
And through the dance and song
She freed and floated on the air her arms
Above dim veils that hid her bosom’s charms:
The passion of her singing was so strong
It drew all hearts along.
Her sweet arms were unfolded on the air,
They seemed like floating flowers the most fair--
White lilies the most choice;
And in the gradual bending of her hand
There lurked a grace that no man could withstand;
Yea, none knew whether hands, or feet, or voice,
Most made his heart rejoice.
The veils fell round her like thin coiling mists
Shot through by topaz suns, and amethysts,
And rubies she had on;
And out of them her jewelled body came,
And seemed to all quite like a slender flame
That curled and glided, and that burnt and shone
Most fair to look upon.
Then she began, on that well-polished floor,
Whose stones seemed taking radiance more and more
From steps too bright to see,
A certain measure that was like some spell
Of winding magic, wherein heaven and hell
Were joined to lull men’s souls eternally
In some mid ecstasy:
For it was so inexplicably wrought
Of soft alternate motions, that she taught
Each sweeping supple limb,
And in such intricate and wondrous ways
With bendings of her body, that the praise
Lost breath upon men’s lips, and all grew dim
Save her so bright and slim.
And through the swift mesh’d serpents of her hair
That lash’d and leapt on each place white and fair
Of bosom or of arm,
And through the blazing of the numberless
And whirling jewelled fires of her dress,
Her perfect face no passion could disarm
Of its reposeful charm.
Her head oft drooped as in some languid death
Beneath brim tastes of joy, and her rich breath
Heaved faintly from her breast;
Her long eyes, opened fervently and wide,
Did seem with endless rapture to abide
In some fair trance through which the soul possest
Love, ecstasy, and rest.
But lo--while each man fixed his eyes on her,
And was himself quite fillèd with the stir
His heart did make within--
The place was full of devils everywhere:
They came in from the desert and the air;
They came from all the palaces of sin,
And each heart they were in:
They lurked beneath the purples, and did crawl
Or crouch in unseen corners of the hall,
Among the brass and gold;
They climbed the brazen pillars till they lined
The chamber fair; and one went up behind
The throne of Herod--fearful to behold--
The Serpent king of old.
Yea, too, before those blinded men there went
Some even to Salome; and they lent
Strange charms she did not shun.
She stretched her hand forth, and inclined her ear;
She knew those men would neither see nor hear:
A devil did support her head, and one
Her steps’ light fabric spun.
O, then her voice with singing all unveiled,
In no trained timid accents, straight assailed
King Herod’s open heart:
The amorous supplication wove and wound
Soft deadly sins about it; the words found
Fair traitor thoughts there,--singing snakes did dart
Their poison in each part.
She sang, “O look on me, and look on Love:
We three are here together, and above--
What heaven may there be?
None for thine heart without this spell of mine,
Yea, this my beauty, yea, these limbs that shine
And make thy senses shudder; and for me,
No heaven without thee!
“O, all the passion in me on this day
Rises into one song to sweep away
The breakers of Love’s bond;
For is it not a pleasant bond indeed,
And made of all the flowers in life’s mead?
And is not Love a master fair and fond?
And is not Death beyond?
“O, who are these that will adjure thee, King,
To put away this tender flower-thing,
This love that is thy bliss?
Dost thou think thou canst live indeed, and dare
The joyless remnant of pale days, the bare
Hard tomb, and feed through cold eternities
Thy heart without one kiss?
“Dost thou think empty prayers shall glad thy lips
Kept red and living with perpetual sips
Of Love’s rich cup of wine?
That thy fair body shall not fall away,
And waste among the worms that bitter day
Thou hast no lover round thy neck to twine
Fond arms like these of mine?
“I say they are no prophets,--very deaths,
And plagues, and rottenness, do use their breaths
Who speak against delight;
Pale distant slayers of humanity
Have tainted them, and sent them forth to try
Weak lures to make man give up joyous right
Of days for empty night.
“I tell thee, in their wilderness shall be
No herbs enough for food for them and thee,
No rock to give thee drink;
I tell thee, all their heavens are a cheat,
Or but a mirage to betray thy feet,
And draw thee quicker to some grave’s dread brink
Where thou shalt fall and sink.