Wedding of the Sisters
Anxious and hushed, the circle waited; but lo! with a sudden
Gesture she flung back her whitened hair! "Ye priestesses holy,
Never the stars have given an answer more grim than this evening.
Darkly, sepulchrally clanks a threatening doom there above us:
One of us shall to-night so deeply sin, that atonement
Greater by sevenfold than the sin shall of us be demanded."
Gesture she flung back her whitened hair! "Ye priestesses holy,
Never the stars have given an answer more grim than this evening.
Darkly, sepulchrally clanks a threatening doom there above us:
One of us shall to-night so deeply sin, that atonement
Greater by sevenfold than the sin shall of us be demanded."
Whispering then, the priestesses rose, but the pretty Ahanna
Twitched the old woman's robe and said: "O worthy high priestess,
Ask of the sinner's name, that she straight be exposed without mercy!"
Lifting a hand as dried as a mummy, and moved unto weeping,
Thus did the other reply, the ninety-year Bent-Amenemma:
"Spare we that question to-night; to-morrow it well may be answered.
Seems not the blow sufficient to thee? Would my zeal, then, be grateful,
If thou thyself should'st be crushed by the weight of the starry foreboding?"
Twitched the old woman's robe and said: "O worthy high priestess,
Ask of the sinner's name, that she straight be exposed without mercy!"
Lifting a hand as dried as a mummy, and moved unto weeping,
Thus did the other reply, the ninety-year Bent-Amenemma:
"Spare we that question to-night; to-morrow it well may be answered.
Seems not the blow sufficient to thee? Would my zeal, then, be grateful,
If thou thyself should'st be crushed by the weight of the starry foreboding?"
So she ended. And, foll'wing the bowl which the sisters in silence
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