An Epic of Women and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

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.

100

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,

101

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.

102

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;

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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.

104

At length they drew nigh to a land by name
Taenarus; and the third day, at its eve,
In guise of one who mourneth the Queen came
Weeping, and prayed him rise up and forgive.