 | The Vision of Prophecy and Other Poems |  |
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STRATONICE.
Shrill the trumpet blew at evening underneath the castle-wall,Forth on the lofty rampart came a lady at the call;
She was fair and very stately, jewels glittered on her brow,
And she looked with anxious glances on the armèd host below;
On the laurelled arms and eagles, which had caught the slanting gleam,
And the close blue spears of warriors winding far-off like a stream.
In the van rode the proud Consul, his short falchion by his knee,
And he looked up to the rampart with a graceful courtesy:
“We have fought a bloody battle, and the king, thy lord, is fled,—
On his track are many foemen for the price upon his head!”
150
Though her long dark eyelash quivered at the mention of her lord.
Then she thought of days departed, and her father old and lone,
For she was a minstrel's daughter, and a lowly lot had known;
Through the fair Ionian hamlets his companion she had been,
Till she sang before the monarch, and he took her for his queen.
But happier was the minstrel than the prince's jewelled bride,
And she felt in that sad moment all the emptiness of pride.
To her lips the draught of pleasure she had never lifted up,
Had she known there lurked such poison at the bottom of the cup.
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