Collected poems by Vachel Lindsay :: :: University of Virginia Library

Said Set, the Great Accuser: “You poisoned your young brothers.”
But the mummy of Cleopatra whispered: “These were the slanders of Rome.”
“You poisoned your faithful servants, you sold the Nile to Cæsar.”
But the mummy of Cleopatra whispered: “These were the slanders of Rome.”
“You gambled with Marc Antony for the last wheat in Egypt,
And for the last blood of Egypt.”
But the mummy of Cleopatra whispered: “These were the slanders of Rome.”
And Set, the soul defiler, the hyena, the tomb-violator,
Yet Prosecuting Attorney of gods and stars,
Eternal in the eternal judgment room,
Said: “Antony is again my witness
Again to declare this woman vile.”

446

For the ninth time Thoth drew him on the wall,
Again, that ink was a green and sulphurous flame,
And Antony was pictured in his armor:—
Bacchus, turned soldier, painted on the stone.
For the ninth time Thoth gave that ibis cry,
And called forth that traitor from his tent.
He stood, a pillar of flame and smoking gold,
And spoke, but as the puppet speaks in shows.
Ancestral enemy of Octavian—
He took Octavian's part before these gods,—
Every praise of the Italian city
For Julius Cæsar's nephew on the throne:—
Flattering that crowned Augustus in his seat
With all the slanders against Cleopatra
Invented by Rome's poets and her priests!
And slandering Cæsar's child Cæsarion,
Killed by Augustus' sword in Alexandria.

A speaking mummy, neither living nor dying—
A human log, held upright by Anubis,
Once the goddess high priests make of girls
The queen was more than mortal in her sorrow.
More than her thirst and hunger, was deeper still
A memory like old poison in deep wounds—

She whispered again, in the face of Set, the deathless:—
“Cleopatra, the young girl, died when Cæsar died.
Only my shadow revelled with Antony,
Coming forth by day from this dark hall
To win the empire for Cæsarion.
Coming forth by day to make my boy
The heir of Egypt, Rome, and the purple seas—
As all you high gods knew from the beginning.
Only my shadow revelled with Antony,

447

He was the plume of Cæsar, nothing more.
Half-republican, then half-Egyptian,
Half-clay—half-god—the Rome clay prevailed,
He turned against his prince, Cæsarion. ...
Then lost at Actium the purple seas.

Held in a spell by Set, the god of evil,
In a drunkard's dream, Antony chanted then
Forgetting his life-hatred of Augustus.
He who had called himself before the Senate,
“Champion of Cæsar's widow and her son.”
There on the terrace of a million years,
In a big doll's-voice, Antony chanted then
A song the Swan of Avon yet should sing,
That all the poets of the world should know.

Her eyes were like two rays of the great moon,
When Mediterranean storms destroy the ships.
She looked at him. And the eyes of Antony,
Became the idiot eye-holes of a helmet,
The visor down. And his world-flashing sword
Was smoke and dust—his face a wavering flame.

In that dim court there stood the great iron scales;
“Scales of Justice,” known to souls to-day,
In one side, the Feather of Perfect Truth,
In the other—the heart of the waiting dead.

Appointed to devour all hearts rejected—
The crocodile called Ammit glowered and waited.

Then Thoth gave Cleopatra “Words of Power.”
And Cleopatra called through the dusty court,

448

With the musical voice of all the women of time—
And the flaming heart there on the iron scales cried:
“Cleopatra died when Cæsar died.
I am the heart of Cæsar, nothing more.”
And the Apes of the Dawn beside the scales gave tongue:
“She is the heart of Cæsar, nothing more.”

And then Cleopatra spoke alone:
“I have knocked at this inner door of my own tomb,
Waiting patiently for this my judgment,
As all you high gods know, since Cæsar died.
We crossed the purple seas for Alexandria
Two clouds, blood-red, two storms against the moon.
He brought me here, that day, and you judged him.
Queens have been crowned, have reigned, and have grown old,
Have been sealed in holy tombs with ‘Words of power’:
Have come to judgment and to resurrection
Since Cæsar knocked with me upon this door,
While his body lay in blood in roaring Rome.
You set him free, you sent him to the skies!
Give me my throne today, beside his throne.
When Antony turned against Cæsarion
I put the Asp against my naked breast;
My Mummy joined my Shadow at this door,
My Heart, and Soul and Name,
Came to one place.

“Why should the gods keep Cleopatra waiting,
A first, and then again a second time,
Suffering the mummy's peril and thirst and hunger,
Suffering the mummy's fear and hell-fire flame?
I, a dead log, cry to be made a god,
Above all memory and all forgetting.

449

I, Cleopatra, defy Set, the Accuser,
And I stake all on Cæsar and our son.
I have called those witnesses now nine times nine,
Let Set prevent their coming nevermore!

“Why should this violator of the dead,
He who would tear the precious mummy-cloth,
He, to whom only mummy-thieves will pray,
He, who would rend the helpless flesh and tendon,
Stealer of vases of most precious ointment,
Counter of beads of lapis-lazuli,
Hyena-souled, small-minded, jackdaw-king,
Stealer of mummy-crowns and mummy-sandals,
Tearing them from the flesh of long-dead men:—
Be the wrecker of tombs of gods—stealer of suns?
Why should this mole steal heavens and suns from me?

“Why should this one defiler of the earth,
Prevent the coming here of Julius Cæsar,
Egypt's dazzling Bird of Paradise,
The great cock-pheasant and peacock of the world,
And the beautiful young prince, Cæsarion,
Heir of Egypt, Rome, and the purple seas?”

The silent gods half-opened their dull eyes,
Isis, in mercy, lifted one slender hand.
So, at last, the deathless prayer seemed heard.
Thoth, with his chisel, cut in the wall before them,
Then painted, Rome's giant hieroglyphic—
Dead Cæsar, with his deep red flowing wound—
Then Cæsar's boy,—Horus Cæsarion,—
An exquisite god-prince, naked and fair.
Yet patience! Oh, mummy and prisoner, Cleopatra,
For that slow, cruel, humorous artist, Thoth,
Tantalizer of the souls of men,

450

Painted and carved, for many a racking day,
Sword-waving hieroglyphics, that, marching, sang
Only at the end: “Come shining forth,
Come forth, oh, deathless sons of Amon-Ra.”

B.C. 20. Nine years later.

Cæsar and Cæsarion at last,
Stepped from the wall to the side of Cleopatra
And the great queen fell there, like a speaking log,
Touching their feet. Her mummy case was wrecked—
A scattered, shattered chrysalis, and tomb.
But Cleopatra called through the dusty court,
With the musical voice of all the women of time—
And the flaming heart, there, on the iron scales, cried:
“Cleopatra died when Cæsar died.
I am the heart of Cæsar, nothing more.”

But what then of the flame called Antony?
It merged into the majesty of Cæsar,
Walked with his stride, the shadow of his shadow,
Hid in his robe, lost itself in his wound.
Had neither vanity nor purpose of its own,
Was seen no more. And Cæsar stood there, waiting.
Only his crown was brighter now: his whip
Shone like a torch above the dusty floor,
The light from his eyes like two rays from the moon,
When Mediterranean storms destroy the ships.

Then Set, the beautiful, the hard, and proud,
Ignoring Cæsar and Cæsarion,
Called again to the old Egyptian gods,
Pointing at the high-throned Alexander,
Still the new-comer in that pantheon,
Pointing long fingers at the fallen queen—
The mummy cloth, still binding her dead knees,

451

Dried mummy wreaths fallen from her hair:—
“These are invaders, like the Hyksos kings!
What have the Ptolemies to do with Egypt?
What right had the Macedonian phalanx here?
Why are Roman legions on the Nile?
Are they enthroned by ancient Amon-Ra?”

Then to those gods, the golden Cæsar spoke:—
“Oh, grief of Cæsar in the heaven of heavens!
Without her, thrones are dim and lights are vain!

“She set me on my horse, to win the Parthian crown,
We were resolved to conquer utmost Asia,
Build again the empire of Thutmose Third,
And send the ardent arrows of Amon-Ra,
To ultimate Britain and ultimate India,
Win new empires for Cæsarion,
Heir of Egypt, Rome and the purple seas.
But Cassius, Casca and Brutus struck too soon.
Cæsar they could endure, but not his heir.
They could endure a king, but not a god.
They could endure a queen, but not a goddess.
And they hated my queen-goddess, Cleopatra.

“No blood was in her veins, but the sun's blood.
Sweet Hathor lived in her eyes and her dimpled knees;
And here, with open wounds, I praise her yet.
I was weary and old, with shadowy ambition.
She kissed me into pride and power again.
She was the Isis nations make of queens.

“She made me into a son of Amon-Ra,
Into Egypt's dazzling bird of paradise,
The great cock-pheasant and peacock of the world.
With one kiss of her girl-lips, long ago.
We dreamed of the Terrace of a Million Years.

452

“There on the island, where I met her first,
This priestess taught me the wisdom of old Thoth,
Who hears the wit, and even the sweet singing,
Uttered among the humorists of the moon.
And when she bore my son Cæsarion,
We sailed with him on all the purple seas,
We climbed with him to every earthly throne,

“Thinking of things beyond all human speech.
We chanted ‘The Chapters of Coming Forth by Day,’
Till Thoth, himself, flew in from the wide sea
(The ibis with the rakish wing and stride)
With the great chapters marching after him,
The hieroglyphic soldiers of his heaven,
That will go marching, flying and glittering,
In all the tombs and capitals of men
In all inscriptions of papyrus rolls,
In many languages, in picture-plays,
Waving stone wings through men's minds forever,
When all Rome's regions are but dust and bones,
When every arch of triumph has fallen down,
When men will fly with iron wings, and speak
Across the sky in words that bind the world,
And light can shine through earth, through steel, and granite.
Those hieroglyphics still will march and sing,
Defending gods and all the tombs of gods,
From Set and his innumerable train,
And all who violate your judgment hall.”

The heart of Cleopatra in the balance,
Neither rose nor fell, and not one breath
Overthrew the Feather of Truth, in the scale.

453

B.C. 11. Nine years after.

The god of spices, and incense, and embalming,
God of the body's dim eternity.
Anubis, the faithful jackal, kept the scales,
And warded off the wicked hands of Set.
The Feather of Truth, and the heart, kept balance, still.

But Set, the hard, the proud, the confident,
Set, with the crocodile, Ammit, at his side,—
Set, the beautiful, the hard and proud,
The devious, the diabolical postponer,
Tried, still to outwear her heart, till it fall from the scales
Into the monstrous jaws to the second death.

He said: “Your fable is yourself in truth,
Your rumour is your soul, your name is you
To the secret caves of long reëchoing time.”

Set, the Accuser, lifted his hand of stone
And sounds came up from the darkness under the sea
And the bones in darkness under all the sands:—
“She poured us out like water and like wine,
She wasted us in battle, let her die!
She wasted us in battle, let her die!”

But what have the gods to do with such complainers?
They love the beautiful, the hard and proud—
Only these can wake them from the night.

The law's delay among the gods is great.
They sleep on shadowy thrones. Their words grow gray.
Their ribs are basalt and their faces basalt
Cut by the hardest chisels of proud priests,
There on The Terrace of a Million Years.

High above in the light of each changing year,
Priests of the jewelled temples of Abydos,

454

Thinking not of forgotten Cleopatra,
Of Cæsar, Cæsarion, or Antony,
Sang their sweet songs of the soul's resurrection,
Songs to Osiris, “First of the Westerners,”
Thinking only of their unburied dead,
Of mummies to be sealed in their holy tombs.

B.C. 2. Nine years later.

With quiet gesture and tremendous mien
Set still held the gods' too-sleepy eyes.
He pointed there to the pitiful prostrate one,
Half-mummy, and half-living girl. Her lips
Had called in vain for water and for food
For years and years, for moments like centuries.
More than her thirst and hunger was deeper still
A memory like old poison in deep wounds,
Antony's treachery to Cæsarion.
Anubis, the faithful jackal, fed her smoke,
There with iron paws, beat down the snakes of death.
Unnoted and unknown to gods or ghosts,
To Set or to his suffering prisoner,

Anno Domini 1.

Strange winds from the uttermost heavens swept the tomb.

Said Set, the torturer, the king of hell-fire:—
“If you are the daughter of a god,
If you would change your name and take your throne,
Command these grave-stones to be made your bread

455

In my great name, proudly defying them.
I am the light-god, I am the king of the skies.”

Her one virtue, a transcendent scorn,
Her one virtue: supernatural pride,
Thirst and hunger had made the great queen mad.
But still she cried and sang through the dusty court
With the musical voice of all the mothers of time,
And the flaming heart, too, on the iron scales cried:—
“Cleopatra died when Cæsar died.
I am the heart of Cæsar, nothing more.”
Then, then, she was given in mercy The Wisdom of Thoth.
Then, though her mummy-face was in the dust,
She whispered against the tempter one last spell—
And the pride that would not break conquered the stars:—
“Must Set still violate the judgment hall?
Let the cold scales be the sole judge of my heart.
And as for the kingship of the universe
Hail to the true light-god, Amon-Ra,
And his Roman son, Caius Julius Cæsar—
Egypt's dazzling bird of paradise,
The great cock-pheasant and peacock of the world!
Oh, wings of Cæsar, high above all mountains,
Wings of Cæsar above the purple seas.”

Strange winds from the uttermost heavens swept the tomb,

Anno Domini 10. Nine years later.

Now the steady hand of Thoth was trembling—
The artist, king of magic and miracle,—
Physician, healer, merciful, at last.
He touched her shrivelled hands with reverent love.

456

He touched her gilded eyelids and strained arms.
He loosed the mummy bands from thigh and heart.
Singing from the ancient Book of the dead,
“Lift up thy head, oh thou who liest prostrate.”

And she was again held upright by Anubis,
A speaking mummy, transfigured, and not dying.
And she stood pitifully by Cæsar, there,
Half-mummy, but half-god: and beautiful—
A soul indeed—a human soul at last—
The Macedonian glory in her face,
Flowering toward Egyptian resurrection.