64
IF I WERE A QUEEN.
To see my Roman lover clasp
His sword with surer love, and die
Closer to it than me? Not so.
No desert-snake with nursing grace
Should draw my fierce heart's fiercest glow;
No coward of my conqueror's-race
Should offer me his blood, I know—
If I were a Queen.
His sword with surer love, and die
Closer to it than me? Not so.
No desert-snake with nursing grace
Should draw my fierce heart's fiercest glow;
No coward of my conqueror's-race
Should offer me his blood, I know—
If I were a Queen.
Boädicéa? I were afraid
To see her scythéd chariots shine!
———Nor Vashti; for she disobeyed
Her lord, the king in kingly wine!
Then she, the Queen of the East, who found
The Wisest not so well arrayed,
In all his glory, as the ground
Arrays its lilies?—Would I fade
Into some shrunken Bible mound,
If I were a Queen?
To see her scythéd chariots shine!
———Nor Vashti; for she disobeyed
Her lord, the king in kingly wine!
Then she, the Queen of the East, who found
The Wisest not so well arrayed,
In all his glory, as the ground
Arrays its lilies?—Would I fade
Into some shrunken Bible mound,
If I were a Queen?
Semiramis? Were it not sweet
To have a palace mirror show[1]
How mad Assyria at my feet
Might lie down like a lamb? And oh!
To have a palace mirror show[1]
How mad Assyria at my feet
Might lie down like a lamb? And oh!
- ↑ Allusion to a celebrated painting of Semiramis.
