Cleopatra Egyptia femina fuit, totius orbis fabula.
SHE made a feast for great Marc Antony:
Her galley was arrayed in gold and light;
That evening, in the purple sea and sky,
It shone green-golden like a chrysolite.
She was reclined upon a Tyrian couch
Of crimson wools: out of her loosened vest
Set on one shoulder with a serpent brooch
Fell one arm white and half her foamy breast.
And, with the breath of many a fanning plume,
That wonder of her hair that was like wine—
Of mingled fires and purples that consume,
Moved all its mystery of threads most fine—
Moved like some threaded instrument that thrills,
Played on with unseen kisses in the air
Weaving a music from it, working spells
We feel and know not of—so moved her hair:
And under saffron canopies all bright
With clash of lights, e’en to the amber prow,
Crept like enchantments subtle passing sight,
Fragrance and siren music soft and slow.
Amid the thousand viands of the feast,
And Nile fruits piled in panniers, where they vied
With palm-tree dates and melons of the East,
She waited for Marc Antony and sighed.
—Where tarries he?—What gift doth he invent
For costly greeting?—How with look or smile,
Out of love treasures not already spent
Prepares he now her fondness to beguile?
—But lo, he came between the whiles she sighed;
Scarce the wave murmurs troubling,—lo, most dear,
His galley, with the oars all softly plied,
Warned her with music distant, and drew near.
And on that night—for present,—he did bring
A pearl; and gave it her with kissing sweet:
“Would half the Roman empires were this thing,”
He said, “that I might lay them at your feet.”
Fairly then moved the magic all arrayed
About that fragrant feast; in every part
The soft Egyptian spells did lend their aid
To work some strange enamouring of the heart.
It was her whim to show him on that night
All she was queen of; like a perfect dream,
Wherein there should be gathered in one sight
The gold of many lives, as it might seem
Spent and lived through at once,—so she made pass
A splendid pageantry of all her East
Beauteous and captive,—so she did amass
The richness of each land in that one feast.
More jewelries than one could name or know,
Set in a thousand trinkets or in crowns
Each one a sovereignty, in glittering row
Numbered the suppliant lands and all her thrones.
And fairest handmaidens in gracious rank,
Their captive arms enchained with links of gold,
Knelt and poured forth the purple wine she drank,
Or served her there in postures manifold.
And beaded women of a yellow Ind
Stood at the couch, with bended hand to ply
Great silver feathered fans wherein the wind
Gat all the choicest fumes of Araby.
There in the midst, of shape uncouth and hard,
Juggled his arts some Ethiopian churl;
Changing fierce natures of the spotted pard
Or serpents of the Nile that creep and curl.
And many a minstrelsy of voice and string,
Twining sweet sounds like tendrils delicate,
Seemed to ensnare the moments—seemed to cling
Upon their pleasure all interminate.
But now at length she made them serve her wine
In the most precious goblet,—wine that shed
Great fragrance, in a goblet fair with shine
Of jewels: so they poured the wine out red:
And lo, to mark that more than any feast
And honour Antony,—or for mere pride
To do so proud a vanity, at least
The proudest, vainest, woman ever tried—
She took the unmatched pearl, and, taking, laughed;
And when they served her now that wine of worth
She cast it gleaming in; then with the draught
Mingling she drank it in their midst with mirth.
And all that while upon the ocean high,
The golden galley, heavy in its light,
Ruled the hoarse sea-sounds with its revelry—