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

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.”