32
VASHTI'S SCROLL
Were sweet recesses, where the orange bowers
Dropt their pure blossoms down in snowy showers,
And night reigned undisturbed.
From cups of gold
Diverse one from another, meet to hold
The king's most costly wines, or to be raised
To princely lips, the gay guests drank, and praised
Their rich abundance. Rapturous music swept
Through the vast arches and the secret kept
Of its own joy; while in slow, rhythmic time
To clash of cymbal and the lute's clear chime,
The dancing-girls stole through the fragrant night
With wreathéd arms, flushed cheeks and eyes alight,
And softly rounded forms that rose and fell
To the voluptuous music's dreamy swell,
As if the air were pulsing waves that bore
Them up and onward to some longed-for shore!
Dropt their pure blossoms down in snowy showers,
And night reigned undisturbed.
From cups of gold
Diverse one from another, meet to hold
The king's most costly wines, or to be raised
To princely lips, the gay guests drank, and praised
Their rich abundance. Rapturous music swept
Through the vast arches and the secret kept
Of its own joy; while in slow, rhythmic time
To clash of cymbal and the lute's clear chime,
The dancing-girls stole through the fragrant night
With wreathéd arms, flushed cheeks and eyes alight,
And softly rounded forms that rose and fell
To the voluptuous music's dreamy swell,
As if the air were pulsing waves that bore
Them up and onward to some longed-for shore!
Wild waxed the revel. On an ivory throne
Inlaid with ebony and gems that shone
With a surpassing lustre, sat my lord,
The King Ahasuerus. His great sword,
Blazing with diamonds on hilt and blade,—
The mighty sword that made his foes afraid,—
And the proud sceptre he was wont to grasp,
With all the monarch in his kingly clasp,
Against the crouching lions (guard that kept
On either side the throne and never slept),
Leaned carelessly. And flowing downward o'er
The ivory steps even to the marble floor,
Swept the rich royal robes in many a fold
Of Tyrian purple flecked with yellow gold.
The jewelled crown his young head scorned to wear,
More fitly crowned by its own clustering hair,
Lay on a pearl-wrought cushion by his side,
Inlaid with ebony and gems that shone
With a surpassing lustre, sat my lord,
The King Ahasuerus. His great sword,
Blazing with diamonds on hilt and blade,—
The mighty sword that made his foes afraid,—
And the proud sceptre he was wont to grasp,
With all the monarch in his kingly clasp,
Against the crouching lions (guard that kept
On either side the throne and never slept),
Leaned carelessly. And flowing downward o'er
The ivory steps even to the marble floor,
Swept the rich royal robes in many a fold
Of Tyrian purple flecked with yellow gold.
The jewelled crown his young head scorned to wear,
More fitly crowned by its own clustering hair,
Lay on a pearl-wrought cushion by his side,
