CLEOPATRA.

———

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT,

TRANSLATOR OF

THE PROMETHEUS AND AGAMEMNON OF ÆSCHYLUS, ETC. ETC.

———

Deliberatâ morte ferveior

Lævis liburnis scilicet invideus

Prevata deduci superbo,

Non humilis mulier, triumpho.

Horace, Lib. I. Ode 37.

Away! away! I would not live,

Proud arbiter of life and death,

Although the proffered boon of breath,

Which fain thou wouldst, but canst not, give,

Were Immortality.

Though all, that poets love to dream,

Of bright and beautiful were blent

To flow in one delicious stream,

Till time itself were spent;

Though glories, such as never met

In mortal monarch’s coronet,

Were poured in one unclouded blaze

On Cleopatra’s deathless days,

I would not bear the wretched strife,

The feverish agony of life,

The little aims, the ends yet less,

The hopes bud-blighted era they bloom,

The joys that end in bitterness,

The race that rests but in the tomb,

These, these, not death, are misery.

Nay! tell not me of pomp or pleasure,

Of empire, or renown, or treasure,

Of friendship’s faith or love’s devotion—

Things treacherous as the wind-rocked ocean—

For I have proved them all.

Away! If there be ought to bless

In rapture’s goblet, I have drained

That draught misnamed of happiness,

Till not a lurking drop remained

Of honey-mantled gall.

Oh! who would live, that once hath seen

The Lamia Pleasure’s mask removed;

That once hath learned how false the sheen

Of all he erst so madly loved?

And I have seen, have learned, the whole;

Till, for the passions fierce and wild

That torrent-like defied control,

A wretched apathy of soul,

Exhausted rapture’s gloomy child,

Hath crept into my very blood,

Chilling the tides that wont to flow

Like lava in their scorching flood—

An apathy more dull than care,

More sad than pain, more still than wo—

Twin sister to despair.

And thinkest thou I would stoop to live

On mercy such as Rome might give—

Or what is Rome, and what am I,

That I should bend a servile knee,

The free-born daughter of the free,

To her, whose victor lords have thrown

Their sceptre-swords before my throne,

And lost their empires at my frown?

Or deemest thou, impotent and base,

That I, of eldest earthly race,

Will thread in slow procession pace

Rome’s proud triumphal way—

A crownless queen, a shameless slave,

Beside thy golden chariot’s nave,

With fettered heads supine to crave

Plebeian pity—Roman ruth—

And with unroyal tears, forsooth!

“To make a Roman Holyday?”

An emperor thou! and I—no more!

My foot is on life’s latest shore.

Away! even now I die.

I feel it coursing through my veins,

The peace that soon shall still my pains,

And calm my ceaseless wo.

Away, proud chief! I would not yield

My empire for the conquered world

O’er which thine eagle wing is furled—

My empire in the grave.

Hades shall rise my steps to greet,

Ancestral kings my advent meet,

Sesostris, of the man-drawn car,

And Rhamses, thunderbolt of war,

Amenophis, of giant frame,

And Tathrak, of immortal name.

The mighty Ptolemies shall rise

With greeting in their glorious eyes,

And cry from lips no longer dumb—

“Hail, sister queen, for thou hast come

Right royally thy feres among.

Our thousand thrones have tarried long,

Till thou shouldst mount thine own.

Last, loveliest, frailest of our line,

By this immortal death of thine

Thou hast outdared all daring—thou

Art first among us. Lo! we bow—

We kneel—before thee! Sister queen,

The end of fortune here is seen,

Ascend thy fated throne.”

And now my woman-heart is steeled;

Call forth the bravest of the brave,

Your reapers of the crimson field,

To whom the battle-cry is breath,

To look upon a woman’s death.

I have outlived my love, my power,

My country’s freedom, people’s name,

My flush of youth, my beauty’s flower,

But not, oh not! my thirst of fame.

The Pyramids before me lie,

Piercing the deep Egyptian sky,

Memorials of the nameless dead,

To build whose glory thousands bled—

And I, the latest of their race,

A captive in their dwelling place,

Die, yet survive them all.

I tell thee, when no trophies shine

Upon the proud Capitoline,

When Julius’ fame is all forgot,

Even where his honored relics rot,

Ages shall sing my fall.

Proud Roman, thou hast won. But I,

More gladly than thou winnest, die.

Away! when crowns were on my brow,

And nations did my rising greet,

And Cæsar groveled at my feet,

I lived not—never lived till now.