DARKNESS pervades the room, Save where gleams on marble pillars fall. Heavy the air with perfumes laden; Through sultry stillness of the gloom A sob alone doth shiver. Through rifted drapery the Sun Now sends a curious glance; It falls upon a queen. Her burning eyes out-gleam The jewels in her crown,— Twin flames within a marble shrine! To be so pale, and breathe! She speaks: "Shut out this garish light, ye slaves; Unto the dead the dark. Rings in my ear the stern decree, 'On the King's face Vashti looks no more.' Ye gods, to whom I offerings bore, Would that your awful power were mine, One moment out of endless time! And then you might your vengeance wreak On ages vet to come. When, mad with wine, he gave command, To crown the feast I should unveil To drunken revellers about the throne, I did refuse. I scorned their lower praise, For I had known the King's. The Jewish woman, that usurps my place, Dared even death to come before him; And he in mercy held the sceptre out. I did deny the King, but she defied the law. Mercy for her! For me?—Oh, what were death, Like to this pain I bear? 'On the King's face Vashti looks no more!' That kingly sentence—O my Lord— Xerxes alone could speak. He knew Death could not quell the haughty heart, Nor blanch the face, on which one look, And the proud boast 'Law altereth not,' Was void; and, from his royal lips, Whose summer sweetness mine have known, Fell slow the ringing words,— Words through the centuries to sound,— 'On the King's face Vashti looks no more.' The King whose power a world hath known, Whose fetters hold the changing sea, A woman hath defied. Ay, hold thy trembling Esther close! The blood of kings is in my veins. Thy waking hours the Jewess claims; King though thou art, I rule thy dreams. 'On the King's face Vashti looks no more;' But in thy heart is Vashti still the Queen."
The sultry day drew to its close; The ardent Sun burned to the edge Of Persia's proud domain; Pillowed upon the Night's dark breast, Noble and shepherd slumbered deep. But on a royal couch a King moved restlessly; And in the gloom, where paced a Queen, The dull Night heard what Day saw not,— The slow, relentless dripping of the tears That could not ease the bitter moan,— "On the King's face Vashti looks no more."
