[Poems by Pinkney in] The life and works of Edward Coote Pinkney a memoir and complete text of his poems and literary prose, including much never before published |
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CLEONICE (fragments)
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173
CLEONICE (fragments)
He starts, he strikes—whose life-blood wets his blade?
Alas, 'tis that of the Byzantine maid!—
Alas, 'tis that of the Byzantine maid!—
Despair, false satrap!—what avail thee now
Platea's laurels wreath'd about thy brow?—
They may perchance avert the lightning's force,
But not the fiery arrows of remorse.
To guard thy haunted solitude from pain,
Those Median and Egyptian slaves are vain;
Thine oriental feasts and Persian state,
The pomps Barbaric which around thee wait,
Appease not, cannot unto sleep persuade
Unhappy Cleonice's angry shade.
Seek if thou wilt the blooming royal bride,
To thine ambitious fancy long allied;
Describe a woman once divine and fair
Now ashes, and a sprite with dabbled hair
Say that, repeating with vindictive air,—
“Go to the doom that pride and lust prepare,”
It nightly comes to trouble thy repose
Till Gods, men, fiends, appear alike thy foes;
Let the great King, thy master and her sire,
Its absence from thy midnight couch require;
Then, if his voice be unavailing, lie
With Cleonice yet—despair and die!
Platea's laurels wreath'd about thy brow?—
They may perchance avert the lightning's force,
But not the fiery arrows of remorse.
To guard thy haunted solitude from pain,
Those Median and Egyptian slaves are vain;
Thine oriental feasts and Persian state,
The pomps Barbaric which around thee wait,
Appease not, cannot unto sleep persuade
Unhappy Cleonice's angry shade.
Seek if thou wilt the blooming royal bride,
To thine ambitious fancy long allied;
Describe a woman once divine and fair
Now ashes, and a sprite with dabbled hair
Say that, repeating with vindictive air,—
“Go to the doom that pride and lust prepare,”
It nightly comes to trouble thy repose
Till Gods, men, fiends, appear alike thy foes;
Let the great King, thy master and her sire,
Its absence from thy midnight couch require;
174
With Cleonice yet—despair and die!
—The moon had set
But countless stars, like strange unpitying eyes,
Looked down, and feasted on my miseries.
But countless stars, like strange unpitying eyes,
Looked down, and feasted on my miseries.
| [Poems by Pinkney in] The life and works of Edward Coote Pinkney | |