University of Virginia Library

CLEOPATRA.

Away! away! I would not live,
Proud arbiter of life and death,
Although the proffered boon of breath
Which fain thou wouldst, but canst not, give,
Were Immortality.
Though all that poets love to dream
Of bright and beautiful were blent
To flow in one delicious stream,
Till time itself were spent;
Though glories such as never met
In mortal monarch's coronet
Were poured in one unclouded blaze
On Cleopatra's deathless days,—
I would not bear the wretched strife,
The feverish agony of life,
The little aims, the ends yet less,
The hopes bud-blighted ere they bloom,
The joys that end in bitterness,
The race that rests but in the tomb:—
These, these, not death, are misery.
Nay, tell not me of pomp or pleasure,
Of empire or renown or treasure,
Of friendship's faith or love's devotion,
Things treacherous as the wind-rocked ocean,—
For I have proved them all.
Away! If there be aught to bless
In rapture's goblet, I have drained
That draught—misnamed of happiness—
Till not a lurking drop remained
Of honey-mantled gall.
Oh! who would live that once hath seen
The Lamia Pleasure's mask removed;
That once hath learned how false the sheen
Of all he erst so madly loved?
And I have seen, have learned, the whole;
Till, for the passions fierce and wild
That, torrent-like, defied control,
A wretched apathy of soul,
Exhausted rapture's gloomy child,
Hath crept into my very blood,
Chilling the tides that wont to flow
Like lava in their scorching flood—
An apathy more dull than care,
More sad than pain, more still than woe—
Twin-sister to despair.
And think'st thou I would stoop to live
On mercy such as Rome might give—
Or what is Rome, and what am I,
That I should bend a servile knee,
The free-born daughter of the free,
To her whose victor lords have thrown
Their sceptre-swords before my throne,
And lost their empires at my frown?
Or deemest thou, impotent and base,
That I, of eldest earthly race,
Will thread in slow procession pace
Rome's proud triumphal way—
A crownless queen, a shameless slave,
Beside thy golden chariot's wave,
With fettered hands supine to crave
Ple beian pity, Roman ruth,
And with unroyal tears, forsooth,
“To make a Roman holiday?”
An emperor thou! and I—no more!
My foot is on life's latest shore.
Away! even now I die.
I feel it coursing through my veins,
The peace that soon shall still my pains,
And calm my ceaseless woe.
Away, proud chief! I would not yield
My empire for the conquered world
O'er which thine eagle wing is furled—
My empire in the grave.
Hades shall rise my steps to greet,
Ancestral kings my advent meet,—
Sesostris, of the man-drawn car,
And Rhamses, thunderbolt of war,
Amenophis, of giant frame,
And Tathrak, of immortal name.
The mighty Ptolemies shall rise
With greeting in their glorious eyes,
And cry from lips no longer dumb,
“Hail, sister queen, for thou hast come
Right royally thy feres among;
Our thousand thrones have tarried long,
Till thou shouldst mount thine own.
Last, loveliest, frailest of our line,
By this immortal death of thine
Thou hast outdared all daring—thou
Art first among us. Lo! we bow—
We kneel—before thee. Sister queen,
The end of fortune here is seen:
Ascend thy fated throne.”
And now my woman-heart is steeled;
Call forth the bravest of the brave,
Your reapers of the crimson field,
To whom the battle-cry is breath,
To look upon a woman's death.
I have outlived my love, my power,
My country's freedom, people's name,
My flush of youth, my beauty's flower,
But not, oh! not my thirst of fame.
The Pyramids before me lie,
Piercing the deep Egyptian sky,
Memorials of the nameless dead,
To build whose glory thousands bled;
And I, the latest of their race,
A captive in their dwelling-place,
Die, yet survive them all.
I tell thee, when no trophies shine
Upon the proud Capitoline,
When Julius' fame is all forgot,
Even where his honored relics rot,
Ages shall sing my fall.
Proud Roman, thou hast won. But I,
More gladly than thou winnest, die.
Away! When crowns were on my brow,
And nations did my rising greet,
And Cæsar grovelled at my feet,
I lived not—never lived till now.