LrlBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 . fa I tf SL. 
 
 Accessions No . I tf SL. Class No. 
 
VASHTI 
 
 A POEM IN SEVEN BOOKS 
 
 BY 
 JOHN BRAYSHAW KAYE 
 
 Author of 
 " Songs of Lake Geneva " 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST. 24 BEDFORD ST., STRAND 
 
 |je $[ nielurbother |)ress 
 1894 
 
 0? THS 
 
 TJNI7BRSIT7 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1894 
 
 BY 
 JOHN BRAYSHAW KAYE 
 
 Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by 
 
 Ube fmicfeerbocfcer press, "fflew 
 G. P. PUTNAM S SONS 
 
V? 
 
 TO 
 
 MY LITTLE DAUGHTER 
 
 NAMED AFTER ITS HEROINE AND TITLE 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 T. B. K. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A 
 
 CONSIDERABLE portion of the following poem, 
 it will be observed, is an adoption of parts of the 
 Bible story of the Book of Esther, with such changes in 
 the language as to make it conform to the measure of 
 the verse chosen ; while a part of the remainder is made 
 up of speech put into the mouths of some of its person 
 ages, who in the Bible story are silent, or have but little 
 to say. By this means, and the introduction of a few 
 minor characters, the author has endeavored to bring 
 into more critical prominence the chief characters in the 
 tremendous drama ; ascribing to them motives and 
 giving their reasoning thereon which, it is assumed, 
 impelled them to action ; and especially has he sought 
 to give a voice to, and get a hearing for, one of the chief 
 unfortunates in the story and at the same time one 
 of the most interesting characters of Holy Writ, that 
 she may relate her trials and sufferings through one of 
 the most singular and pathetic ordeals known to human 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 experience ; whatever the facts after her deposition may 
 have been. Around and through this nucleus, the au 
 thor has attempted to weave and blend what it seems to 
 him must have been some of the principal events of con 
 temporaneous profane history, leading up to, running 
 through, and continuing a time after the happening of, 
 the central events recorded in the Book of Esther, and 
 having a more or less direct effect upon some of its per 
 sonages and their actions. At the same time the author 
 has attempted to invest the poem with some hint of the 
 combined spiritual atmosphere of Judaism and Zoroas- 
 tianism, the one or the other of which must have influ 
 enced its actors to a greater or less extent. In the journey 
 to Lydia, a journey not recorded in the Book of Esther, 
 the author has endeavored to have called up some of 
 the interesting history and legend of the countries 
 through which the travellers passed, for the edification 
 of the beautiful and melancholy refugee, and, let him 
 hope, without the protest of the reader. 
 
 But few notes of reference have been made, but then, 
 in a poem, it can scarcely be required to cite authorities, 
 still the history of the poem, it is believed, is in the main 
 correct. With a deep consciousness, however, of its 
 many imperfections, in expression, arrangement, and 
 otherwise, the poem Vashti is offered to the reading 
 public in the hope that it may not prove an altogether 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 unappreciated effort to further exemplify the persistent 
 strength of purpose, and love of race, of Mordecai ; the 
 vigor of mind, the exalted courage and faith of Esther ; 
 and more than all, the kindly, loving, yet strong nature 
 of the fair woman, who, at such peril and sacrifice in the 
 cause of womanly modesty dared to ignore the command 
 of the cruel and imperious Ahasuerus. 
 
 JOHN B. KAYE. 
 CALMAR, I A., April, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 THE GREAT FAIR AT SHUSHAN. 
 
 Introduction, I ; the call and assembling of the nations, 4 ; the great 
 military pageant, 6 ; the Persians and Medes, 7 ; Greeks, 9 ; In 
 dians, 9 ; Arabs, 10 ; Assyrians, n ; Chaldeans, 12 ; Jews, 13 ; 
 Syrians, 13; Phoenicians, 13; Egyptians, 13; Caducians, 14; 
 Scythians, 14; Parthians, 15; Armenians, 15; Lydians, 15; 
 Ethiopians, 16 ; the " Immortals," 16 ; in the throne-room of the 
 palace Shushan, 21 ; Ahasuerus address of welcome to the na 
 tions, 22 ; reply by the sub-king of Babylon, 24 ; abjectness of 
 Babylon, 26 ; song of the Nations, 27 ; the dancing virgins, 30 ; 
 the feats of the giants and the dwarfs, 31 ; the jugglers, 32 ; the 
 summoned Peris, 33 ; the feast and banquet of the garden court, 
 35 ; Ahasuerus sends for Vashti, her answer and the King s 
 wrath, 38 ; Ahasuerus inquires of the seven princes what shall 
 be done to Vashti, 38 ; the advice of Memucan, 40 ; decree 
 against Vashti ; and the chamberlains ordered to execute the 
 decree, 41 ; Mehuman returns and presents Vashti s appeal, 
 42 ; the King denounces and condemns Mehuman, 43. 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 VASHTI. 
 
 Vashti an outcast at Zora s Pool, 44 ; soliloquizes, 44 ; compares 
 her present and past, 45 ; on her presents from the provinces, 
 46 ; on the women s song of praise to, 51 ; of a leper and his 
 conduct, 54; on her disobedience, 56; the decree against, 
 60-1 ; on the courage and self-sacrifice of Mehuman, 62 ; his 
 message from the King, 63 ; on the disrobing for expulsion, 64 ; 
 on her parting with the baby prince, the expulsion and awaken 
 ing. 65-6 ; on the story of Eden and the first pair, 67 ; on the 
 injustice of her own punishment, 69 ; criticises Memucan, 70 ; 
 on the benefits of speech, 71. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 HADASSAH AND MORDECAI. 
 
 Mordecai Hadassah inquires of his thoughts, 72 ; his answer, 73 ; 
 tells Hadassah his belief that she will be chosen queen, 74 ; 
 advises her to go for a time to Ecbatana the more readily to con 
 ceal her race and identity, 75 ; Hadassah protests, criticising 
 Mordecai for inconsistency, 77 ; Mordecai further urges his pro 
 ject, 78 ; and relates to Hadassah his dream of her coronation, 
 and of her being named " Esther," 80 ; and presses her further 
 for the good of Israel and the glory of God, 81 ; she consents to 
 retire to Ecbatana to await being called to Shushan by the King s 
 couriers, as requested by Mordecai, 82 ; sets out for Ecbatana ; 
 a lion crouches in the way, but afterwards flees, 83 ; she inter 
 prets it as a good omen, 85 ; arrives at Ecbatana ; is brought 
 back to Shushan and afterwards is made queen, 87. 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 HAMAN S DECREE THE MOURNING. 
 
 Bigthan and Teresh conspire to slay Ahasuerus, 89 ; the plot dis 
 covered and divulged by Mordecai, 90 ; Haman angered at 
 Mordecai ; plans to destroy him and all the Jews, 90 ; and pro- 
 cures a decree against them, 91 ; thereupon Mordecai wails and 
 rends his garments ; his lamentation, 92 ; Hatach brings him 
 new raiment, and inquiry from Esther, 94 ; Mordecai refuses the 
 raiment and sends a message to Esther, 95 ; who being much 
 troubled returns Hatach with second message, 96 ; Mordecai 
 returns a message upbraiding her for her inaction, 98 ; Esther 
 resolves to appear before the King, and asks that the people fast 
 and pray with her, 99. 
 
 BOOK V. 
 
 LITTLE META. 
 
 Vashti and the little waif, Meta ; the inquiry, 100 ; the place of 
 refuge, a hovel in the Jewish quarter, 101 ; gratitude of the 
 foundling, 102 ; the prayer in the dark by the unknown, 103 ; 
 song of supplication for deliverance by the multitude, 106 ; 
 Vashti sends Meta out to inquire of the Jewish sorrow ; she 
 returns not, 109 ; self-upbraiding of Vashti, no ; her search for 
 the missing child, in ; the general wailing of the Jews, in ; 
 Vashti s prayer, 112-3. 
 
 BOOK VI. 
 ESTHER. 
 
 Esther appears before Ahasuerus, who extends toward her the 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 golden sceptre, 1 14 ; she invites the King and Haman to a ban 
 quet, 115 ; invites them to a second banquet when she promises 
 to make known to the King her wish, 115 ; Haman joyfully re 
 turning from the banquet meets Mordecai ; is angered at the 
 Jew s contemptuous conduct, curses him and meditates revenge, 
 116 ; boasts of his possessions and preferment, 117 ; complains 
 of his treatment by the Jew, and his wife advises the building of 
 the gallows for Mordecai, 118 ; the King, troubled, could not 
 sleep, and talks to himself of his power and its vanity, 119; 
 complaining of the interference of his princes, 120; of suitors, 
 the plot to assassinate him, 121 ; calls the guards to summon the 
 scribes to read from the chronicles, 121; the clepsydra in the King s 
 chamber, 122 ; hearing the record of the plot to murder him, 
 inquires what had been done for Mordecai, 122 ; inquires who is 
 in the court and orders Haman into his presence, 123 ; and 
 inquires what shall be done to whom the King would honor, 
 123 ; answer of Haman, 123 ; the King requires him to carry out 
 his suggestions, and to honor Mordecai, 124 ; the humiliation of 
 Haman and triumph of Mordecai, 124 ; the second banquet, 
 125 ; Esther makes known her purpose ; her plea for her people, 
 125 ; discloses Haman as their enemy, 126 ; rage and jealousy of 
 the King, and the hanging of Haman, 126 ; Esther continues 
 her plea, prostrating herself before the King, who extends the 
 golden sceptre, bids her arise, and authorizes the Jews to 
 defend themselves, 127-8 ; Mordecai invested with the King s 
 signet, dictates the decree of defence, 129; elevation of Mor 
 decai, 130 ; and rejoicing among the Jews, 131 ; the Jews defend 
 themselves successfully and slay many of their enemies, 120 ; 
 the establishment of " Purim," and a time of peace for the 
 Jews, 132. 
 
CONTENTS. Xlii 
 
 BOOK VII. 
 THE FLIGHT. 
 
 Vashti comments on the deliverance of the Jews, 133 ; criticises the 
 boast of the unchangeableness of the laws, 134 ; and instances 
 the folly of precedent, 135 ; deprecates the spirit of Esther in 
 requesting a second day for slaughter of the Jews enemies, 136-7 ; 
 tells of her dream of the lost Meta, 138 ; and her childhood s 
 home, 139 ; the mysterious beggar, 140 ; who claims relation 
 ship, and brings tidings of the lost Meta ; her kidnapping and 
 sale into slavery, 141 ; Vashti exclaims, and questions the 
 intruder, 142 ; reply of the unknown, 143 ; who speaks of her 
 kinsman Aldiphernes, who has planned for escape to Lydia, 144 ; 
 Vashti remonstrates, 145 ; the unknown urges and unmasks ; is 
 Aldiphernes in disguise, 146-7 ; Vashti yields, joins her kinsman s 
 caravan in the guise of maid to his wife Aryenis, and they set out 
 for Lydia, 148 ; song of the cowherd, 149-50 ; Vashti comments 
 thereon, 151 ; before Behistun Rock, 152-3 ; its inscriptions, 
 Vashti s comments thereon, 154-5 J the journey through Zagros, 
 by Lakes Urumieh and Van, and along the base of Ararat, into 
 Cappadocia, 156 ; Aldiphernes relates of the inroads and expul 
 sion of the Cimmerians, 157 ; comment of Vashti, 158 ; Aldi 
 phernes tells of the Battle of the Eclipse, 159; Vashti on the 
 cause of the eclipse, 160 ; Aldiphernes points out the place of the 
 first conflict between the armies of Croesus and Cyrus the Great, 
 161 ; tells of Croesus retiring to Sardis, 162 ; the following of 
 the Persians, and the famous onslaught of the Lydian cavalry, 
 163 ; the Persian trick of the camel charge, 164 ; of the fall of 
 Sardis and Lydia, 164 ; the arrival at Sardis and the meeting of 
 Vashti and little Meta, 165 ; the refuge, 166. 
 
VASHTI. 
 
 o 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE GREAT FAIR AT SHUSHAN. 
 
 LD Nile had flowed seven times five hundred years 
 
 In his accustomed course, sweeping adown 
 Those brown Egyptian vistas to the sea, 
 And had been feared and worshipped as a god 
 By untold millions who had lived their lives, 
 And sung their songs, and boasted their exploits 
 In arms and arts, and then lain down and died ; 
 Till on his sunny banks on either side 
 From the broad Delta unto that far land 
 Where once the beauteous Queen of Sheba reigned, 1 
 Wrapped in their sere-cloth folds and put away, 
 A hundred generations lay entombed ; 
 
 1 Abyssinia. 
 
 I 
 
2 VASHTI. 
 
 The pyramids already were grown old, 
 
 And even more of mystery than now 
 
 Dwelt on the stony face, so calm and cold, 
 
 Of Gizeh s Sphynx. The Memnon s harp-like voice 
 
 A thousand years with each returning sun 
 
 Had murmured sweetly from the Theban gates ; 
 
 A thousand years had passed since Israel 
 
 Toiling across the weary wilderness 
 
 Scaped Pharaoh and bondage ; Canaan s land, 
 
 The promised country, had been occupied ; 
 
 The world s mutations, and the sweep of years 
 
 Had brought to Israel triumphs and deep woes ; 
 
 Philistia had been won, and lost again, 
 
 Won, lost, and won, and the Twelve Tribes, by turns, 
 
 Had warred among themselves, been reconciled, 
 
 Been strong, and weak, by times masters, and slaves ; 
 
 (And ten had disappeared who shall say where ?) 
 
 Assyria had thundered at the gates 
 
 Of David s city ; been repulsed of God, 
 
 And lost the sway of empire ; Babylon, 
 
 From her encircling walls, to victory 
 
 And to Jerusalem, had sent her hosts, 
 
 Had razed the Holy City to the ground, 
 
 Destroyed its temples, and the house of God, 
 
 And brought back Israel to captivity 
 
 To last until the captives had beheld 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 
 
 The oppressor s own destruction ; Persian, o er Mede, 
 And o er Chaldean, had prevailed, and o er 
 A hundred Asiatic kings and chiefs ; 
 Had humbled Egypt, brought fierce Libya down, 
 And levied tribute on the western tribes 
 To Ethiopia s border ; Macedon and Thrace, 
 Upon the northern coast of ^Egean, 
 And many islands of the ^Egean Sea, 
 Had bowed their necks unto the Persian yoke ; 
 E en the swart warriors yond the Ister s course 
 The predatory " Scyths beyond the sea," 
 Trembled anon in dread expectancy 
 Lest once again from cross the Bosphorus 
 The Persians and their levies might appear, 
 In countless numbers, panoplied for war, 
 And all athirst for plunder, to draw sword 
 And level lance against the Scythian shafts ; 
 When from his central throne the mighty King 
 Ahasuerus " King of Kings " so called 
 (Being the same called " Xerxes " by the Greeks) 
 Proclaimed a feast and time of merriment, 
 And military pageant of the realm, 
 Throughout the provinces sixscore and seven 
 That filled the limits of his mighty empire, 
 And bade the kings, and princes, and chief men 
 1 Ister, ancient name of the Danube. 
 
4 VASHTI. 
 
 Through all his vast domain, warm welcome thence 
 In such good haste as each could best devise, 
 To join the King at Shushan with their wives, 
 Their guards, their households, and their retinues 
 To eat and drink and make their hearts all glad 
 On the unstinted bounty of the king ; 
 To centre the whole empire in a camp 
 Enjoying entertainments and delights 
 Even for the full space of a half a year 
 Nor dull one sense unto satiety. 
 
 From banks of Nile and coast of Araby, 
 And from beyond the rocky Sinjar cliffs 
 And the Assyrian cities of the plain, 
 From the Judean hills and Syrian vales, 
 From Nubian fastnesses and Libyan wastes, 
 From fallen Babylon and distant Ind, 
 From the gem islands of ^Egean Sea 
 From all the tributaries of the realm, 
 Within brief space, responsive to the call, 
 The chiefs and rulers of the tribes and states, 
 Their servants, families, and men-at-arms, 
 Were journeying toward Shushan, and in course 
 Within four months, the latest caravan 
 And cavalcade had drawn up at the gate 
 Of the king s palace and been duly welcomed. 
 
THE GREA T FAIR A T SHU SHAN. 
 
 When all had rested well and been restored 
 
 From weariness of travel, there was set, 
 
 By order of the king, a day when all 
 
 The provinces and tribes, by chosen troops 
 
 Appropriately mounted, duly armed, 
 
 Distinctly uniformed and panoplied, 
 
 Should thro the streets of Shushan make parade 
 
 In honor of the king and the occasion 
 
 And the assembled guests, in such a pageant 
 
 Such an array of various types of men 
 
 Such a parade of nations, as the world 
 
 Had ne er before, nor ever since hath, seen. 
 
 At rise of sun on the auspicious day, 
 
 All Shushan woke with glad expectancy 
 
 To witness the impressing spectacle, 
 
 And as a banner in the van unfurled, 
 
 A hundred trumpets flung their brazen tones 
 
 Upon the air ; and sixscore chiefs, and seven, 
 
 Threw into line their several cavalcades, 
 
 And then one trumpet-peal borne down the line 
 
 And taken up at reg lar intervals 
 
 Was carried back a half score leagues until 
 
 The mighty concourse, summoned to advance, 
 
 Moved slowly forward. Carried at its head, 
 
 A short space in advance, fixed to a rod 
 
6 VASHTI. 
 
 Crossed on the shaft of a gold-pointed spear 
 
 And held aloft by a colossal Mede, 
 
 Who sate a great white charger strong and proud 
 
 In his bejewelled harness, Kaweianee 
 
 The leather apron of the mighty blacksmith 
 
 The Standard Royal of the Persian State 
 
 Since time of Feridoon, studded with gems 
 
 And trimmed with golden fringe, shone gorgeously 
 
 In the bright morning sun. Next came the King. 
 
 Seated in state in a resplendent tow r 
 
 Upon the back of a huge elephant 
 
 Whose milk-white tusks were clasped with bands of gold, 
 
 And on occasion hung with tinkling bells, 
 
 And whose vast bulk richly caparisoned 
 
 With costly stuffs, all trimmed in filigree 
 
 Of gold and silver deftly interwoven, 
 
 Well symboled kingly power and boundless riches 
 
 Moving in triumph and great majesty. 
 
 Then came the " Seven Princes " who might sit 
 
 Next to the King his trusted counsellors 
 
 And the three greatest captains of the realm 
 
 The ten first personages in the empire 
 
 Mounted alike on two great elephants 
 
 (Five upon each) that moved on side by side, 
 
 Twins in their size and their caparisons, 
 
 Betokening the Persia-Median power ; 
 
THE GREA T FAIR A T SHUSH AN. J 
 
 And on an outer perch, builded upon 
 
 The outer sides of their two gorgeous towers 
 
 Sat a gigantic Ethiop, black as night 
 
 Immovable as carven ebony ; 
 
 And each one held aloft an ebon staff 
 
 Tipped with a silver star, the star enclosed 
 
 Within a winged circle of fine gold 
 
 This last the symbol of Ahura Mazda, 
 
 The good and all-wise god, and from these staffs 
 
 In shimmering silken folds floated in air 
 
 Twin banners of the empire. 
 
 After these 
 
 The great king s special pride, tithe of his guard 
 A thousand, matchless, strong, and godlike men- 
 Five hundred Persians and five hundred Medes, 
 The flower of all the realm, rode gallantly, 
 The first on coal-black steeds with arched necks 
 Armored with flakes of brass half overlapped, 
 Their saddles of white leather, silver trimmed, 
 O er scolloped blankets, worked with threads of gold ; 
 Their bridles made of silken cord and hung 
 With a white silken tassel neath the ear, 
 The front embellished with a silver star ; 
 The Medes on milk-white chargers sleek and strong, 
 Of the famed Nissaean breed, and panoplied 
 
8 VASHTI. 
 
 In all ways as the Persians horses were, 
 Save in the color, all things being black 
 In contrast with the steeds. 
 
 These thousand men, 
 The Persians clad in a rich, armored garb, 
 Crossed, gilded harnesses, and bright steel helmets 
 All open-faced below, the upper front 
 Bossed with the winged circle deftly wrought ; 
 Each with a jewelled dagger in his girdle, 
 And a keen sword of wondrous workmanship, 
 Their glittering blades all damaskeened with gold, 
 And hilts inlaid with pearl and precious gems ; 
 The Medes, in dark cuirasses, greaves and boots, 
 And jewelled sashes, and all helmeted 
 With pointed casques emblazoned at the brow 
 With a half-risen sun of sheeny gold, 
 Whose inlaid rays spread out and upward, so 
 Pointing a golden arch upon the steel, 
 And armed with jewelled swords, and polished spears, 
 With shafts of cornel wood of matchless finish, 
 In truth did seem a martial company ; 
 Clear-visaged, olive-skinned, and mustachioed, 
 Strong-limbed, deep-chested, sitting well their steeds,- 
 The boast and pleasure of the populace. 
 
THE GREA T FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 
 
 A company of white-skinned, stalwart Greeks, 
 Whose well-knit frames betokened rugged strength, 
 Followed the Medes, in lead of their own prince, 
 Who oft had led them in the deadly fray. 
 Over their heads the banner that they loved, 
 The standard of their island, sea-girt home, 
 Bearing in woven gold an armed Mars, 
 Waved proudly. Finely horsed on steeds 
 That oft had borne their riders into battle ; 
 Armed with long spears, and maces, helmeted, 
 And clad in steel-bright armor, well they seemed 
 A valiant, warlike band. 
 
 Next after these, 
 
 Five hundred Indian bowmen, with their bows 
 And well-filled quivers o er their shoulders thrown 
 Five bowmen in a group, a hundred groups 
 Sate in a hundred open-sided towers, 
 Borne by a hundred well trained elephants 
 Ranked side by side in fives as they passed on 
 In brilliant trappings, moving pond rously, 
 With steady, well timed gait, all keeping step, 
 Their sinewy trunks swaying from side to side, 
 Their tusks great pointed beams of ivory 
 Like levelled lances in each massive rank, 
 
10 VASHTI. 
 
 Held ever ready for resistless charge, 
 While, gleaming from each elephantine front, 
 Shone a pale silver star, and over all, 
 From each alternate rank, waving on high, 
 The sun-kissed, golden banner of the Ind 
 Floated in air. 
 
 Now from Sweet Araby 
 Two hundred dwellers in the desert came, 
 On tall, brown camels (that with high-held heads 
 And swinging pace strode solemnly along) 
 Mounted, each on a fleshy pinnacle 
 Capped with a richly trimmed, fantastic seat, 
 Half saddle and half howdah, which they sate 
 At high-kneed stride in shifty attitude, 
 Their lithe forms clad in half-loose drapery, 
 Their crimson bonnets covering in part 
 Their swarthy cheeks, while each one held at rest, 
 Skyward aslant, a long, bright-pointed lance 
 Tasselled with colored streamers on the shaft 
 Just neath the glittering steel. Four hundred more 
 Of these swart sons of Araby, arrayed 
 And armed as were the cameliers, save that, 
 At the right side of each, in jewelled sheath, 
 Hung a keen, crooked sword, with hilt of gold, 
 Bestrode four hundred steeds as beautiful 
 
THE GREA T FAIR A T SHU SHAN. 1 1 
 
 As they were fleet, as fleet as morning light ; 
 
 As true as tireless, tireless as the wind ; 
 
 As gentle as courageous, without fear ; 
 
 Their proud heads carried well on arching necks, 
 
 Their ready ears tilting for ev ry sound, 
 
 Their half transparent nostrils drinking in 
 
 The life and vigor of the morning air, 
 
 Their clear, bold eyes obstructed by no blind, 
 
 Their shining, well groomed coats, like new-born fur, 
 
 Speaking the purest strain of desert barbs, 
 
 Their clean, sound, sinewy limbs and supple joints 
 
 Traced with a network of rich-blooded veins, 
 
 Their clear, firm hoofs unmarred by nail or shoe, 
 
 As hard and firm as blocks of adamant ; 
 
 And so they moved with measured, flexile step, 
 
 These twice two hundred steeds, which but a word 
 
 One guiding impulse from their masters all 
 
 Might change into a living hurricane, 
 
 A many-splintered, rushing thunderbolt, 
 
 Flaming with banners, glittering with steel. 
 
 A hundred skilled Assyrian chariotiers, 
 With each an armed archer at his side, 
 All clad in shining mail, and borne along 
 In gilded chariots, followed after these ; 
 Each chariot drawn by two impatient steeds 
 
12 VASHTI. 
 
 Powerful stallions, eager and well fed 
 Caparisoned even as in time of war 
 In armored housings : champing brazen bits 
 In fierce restraint, with their wild eyes ablaze, 
 And tossing angrily their heads in air, 
 They seemed as if athirst to dash away 
 And drag the murderous chariot scythes among 
 Some unseen hostile host. As of this band, 
 Four hundred mounted spearmen followed on, 
 Both men and beasts magnificent in strength, 
 And in accoutrements, and trained to war ; 
 Of such, as in the days long past had made 
 Assyria s name a dread and a reproach 
 Unto the nations. 
 
 Chaldea next in line, 
 Five hundred sons of fallen Babylon 
 Moved proudly on, their jewelled, polished arms, 
 Their flashing armor, and fleet-footed steeds 
 Caparisoned in trappings trimmed with gold, 
 Reflected still the grandeur of their state 
 And splendor of their once proud capital. 
 Gaily they rode along, while o er their heads 
 The Persian banners waved above their own 
 Borne side by side : And after these there came 
 Sad and dejected and of downcast mien 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 13 
 
 A mounted troop of the oft-times dispersed 
 Remnant of Israel from far Palestine, 
 Captor, and captive, in the conq ror s train 
 Thus rode along. 
 
 A troop of Syrian horse 
 From distant Tadmor s desert-bounded walls 
 Followed at Israel s heels ; and after these 
 A company of Damascan cameliers 
 Mounted on two-hunched bactrians ; 
 And then there passed, in the imposing line, 
 A troop of Phoenicians from the coast 
 Of shell-paved ^Egean ; and followed these, 
 The wonder of that truly wondrous train, 
 A band of belted bowmen, yellow-skinned, 
 Lithe-limbed and pouting-lipped, all richly clad, 
 In fitting hauberks mailed with links of gold, 
 Sandals, and quilted turbans feather-plumed, 
 And borne in chariots drawn by fiery steeds, 
 And blazoned with gilt figures ibises, 
 And bulls and crocodiles of things revered 
 In Pharaoh s land of monoliths and tombs. 
 Egypt s contingent this : the kingliest troop 
 Of all that cavalcade of kingly men ; 
 And as they passed, driv n by their chariotiers, 
 Neath banners blazoned with the asp and scarab, 
 
14 VASHTI. 
 
 The head of Amun and the Sun s broad disk, 
 They leaned upon their bows, gazed straight ahead, 
 And seemed to think of naught save that past time 
 When Egypt led the world, nor ever thought 
 That she might one day grace a conq ror s pageant. 
 Five hundred fierce Caducians (from the north, 
 Beyond the Caspian Gates,) renowned in war 
 And dextrous with the deadly javelin, 
 Came after Egypt on their tireless steeds, 
 In light fur tunics clad ; their coarse, wild hair 
 Trimmed to a central tussock on the crown, 
 Their dark brows wound about with purple cloth 
 Pinned with the hooked claws of savage beasts ; 
 Hard-visaged, savage men, cruel yet brave, 
 Armed with their fav rite weapon, and with bows, 
 And ready arrows quivered at their backs, 
 Guiding their chargers with a single rein. 
 
 Then came a band of Asiatic Scyths, 
 
 A troop from that vast horde that roamed at will 
 
 North of the Oxus, reaching to the banks 
 
 And yet beyond of broad Jaxartes stream, 
 
 A company of wild barbaric men 
 
 Mounted superbly, armed with only bows 
 
 And feathered arrows, fitted with bronze heads, 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 15 
 
 Which, dipped in subtle poison, are winged death 
 Sped by these matchless bowmen in fierce battle. 
 
 And after these the Parthian heavy horse, 
 
 Five hundred strong a troop of giant men 
 
 Mounted on powerful steeds, strong-limbed and tall, 
 
 And horse and rider clad in rugged mail 
 
 Of overlapping scales of hammered iron. 
 
 Each rider wore a burnished iron casque, 
 
 Surmounted by a golden blaze-like point, 
 
 Upon his head, and in his strong right hand, 
 
 Balanced at rest, he bore a pond rous spear, 
 
 While with his left he guided his good steed ; 
 
 And so, ten in each rank, they moved along, 
 
 A living wall of rugged strength and power, 
 
 While from the centre of each seventh rank, 
 
 Borne high upon a tasselled, cross-barred staff, 
 
 Floated their standard of the rising sun. 
 
 Next came Armenians, and next Lydians came, 
 
 And so troop followed troop until there passed 
 
 A company from every separate tribe 
 
 And province in the whole far-reaching empire ; 
 
 Three continents in one long line of march 
 
 A stream of waving banners, glittering arms, 
 
 And men of martial bearing borne along 
 
1 6 VASHTL 
 
 On elephants, and camels, horses, chariots, 
 
 Till lastly, bringing up the distant rear, 
 
 A troop of stalwart, coal-black Ethiops, 
 
 Nude, save a short skirt round their ebon loins, 
 
 Bands of white ivory about their arms 
 
 And snow-white plumes upon their turbaned heads, 
 
 Came into view like a dark cloud of war ; 
 
 And each one bore an ivory-pointed spear 
 
 With a long, slender shaft of polished cane, 
 
 Carried at level poise in his right hand, 
 
 Upon his forearm, prest against his side. 
 
 On dark brown steeds well seated, ten abreast, 
 
 And fifty deep, and every man in line, 
 
 These dusky warriors and their hardy mounts 
 
 Beneath barbaric banners moved along. 
 
 Under the stately palms, outside the gates, 
 
 Hard by the palace in an open space 
 
 Sloping toward the walled course of Chaospes, 
 
 Upon a dais, on a gilded throne 
 
 Approached by rows of cushioned seats like steps 
 
 One o er the other, and extending out 
 
 A distance right and left, the mighty King, 
 
 Now having quit the great procession, sate. 
 
 Behind him stood the royal fan-bearer 
 
 And holder of the royal parasol, 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 1 7 
 
 Each at his duty, and on either side 
 
 A dozen tried and trusty men-at-arms 
 
 Magnificently armored and equipped ; 
 
 While ranged below upon the sloping ground 
 
 And facing outward in ten open ranks, 
 
 And in each rank a thousand chosen men 
 
 Extending right and left before the throne, 
 
 Stood the King s body-guard, the famed IMMORTALS. 1 
 
 In armored hauberks and tall, pointed casques 
 
 Of steel, becrested with a winged disk 
 
 Of hammered gold, and each on his left arm, 
 
 At level rest, upheld an oblong shield 
 
 Of plated brass, and with his mailed right hand, 
 
 Close by his side, held his keen-pointed spear, 
 
 Clasped by its polished shaft of cornel wood, 
 
 The round butt planted firmly near his foot, 
 
 The hand-holt wound about with golden wire, 
 
 And the bright two-edged head reaching above 
 
 1 The " Immortals" were a corps of 10,000 chosen foot-soldiers, 
 carefully selected from among the Medes and Persians only, and 
 maintained by all the early Persian monarchs as a body-guard, tak 
 ing their name from the fact that, notwithstanding deaths or re 
 movals from other causes, the ranks were immediately refilled, and 
 so the number, 10,000, continuously maintained. The " Immor 
 tals" of the great Xerxes are said to have been among the first 
 troops in the assault at Thermopylae, and at that time to have been 
 almost exterminated by Leonidas and his Greeks. 
 
1 8 VASHTl. 
 
 The golden crest upon his shining helmet ; 
 So seemed they a long bank of brazen shields 
 Stubbled with lances, like a harvest glebe, 
 Glorious with shining crests and waving banners ; 
 While nearer to the King, upon the seats 
 On either side of him, and yet below, 
 Sate tributary rulers, satraps, kings, 
 High officers of state and counsellors 
 All in their courtly robes, there to behold 
 The wondrous, armed pageant of the nations. 
 And each one viewed with pride, as it passed by, 
 The troop of his own land, and heard with joy 
 The populace send up its mighty shout 
 Of cordial greeting. 
 
 Following on this, 
 
 After the great procession, in the eve, 
 The King threw open to his noble guests 
 The portals of his palace, great Shushan, 
 That they might feast their eyes upon its splendors 
 And there behold on his imperial throne, 
 Seated in royal state, the King himself, 
 In his great majesty, to welcome them, 
 And entertain them even as he willed 
 According to his pleasure. So the women, 
 In a like manner, Vashti, the fair Queen, 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 
 
 Even at the royal house, would take in charge 
 To give them pleasure with her gracious smiles, 
 The clear, sweet music of her sisters harps 
 And sweeter tones from their yet sweeter lips 
 Uniting music and soft dulcet speech 
 Into seraphic song. 
 
 As night drew on, 
 
 And daylight faded out, the pale, dim stars, 
 Only half seen at first, one here, one there, 
 Yonder a little group, a cluster still 
 Directly overhead, timidly showed themselves 
 Just on night s threshold ; but soon growing bold 
 The countless astral worldlets stepping forth 
 Into the open sky, decked its blue dome 
 With gems of wondrous lustre. 
 
 The outer court, 
 
 And royal grounds about the Great King s palace, 
 The trees, along the walks and avenues 
 And in the groves, and round the pebbly pools, 
 Were hung with lanterns shedding various lights, 
 Red, green, and blue, all colors of the bow, 
 And intermediate tints, till all the park 
 Like a vast plot set with tall flow ring plants 
 Shone in the night all luminous with blooms 
 
2O VASHTl. 
 
 That on the lakelets glanced their wondrous beams 
 Where white swans sailed among the mirrored stars. 
 
 Within the palace, in the circled hall 
 
 The throne-room builded by the Great Darius 
 
 A thousand silver lamps with chains of gold, 
 
 Hung from the high arched ceiling of blue sapphire, 
 
 Lit with their flaming cressets, the mock sky 
 
 Studded with brilliants, like the constellations, 
 
 To represent the heavenly firmament, 
 
 (The joint production of Chaldean science 
 
 And the constructive art of gifted Greece.) 
 
 And this was horizoned with plates of pearl 
 
 Whose wat ry tints shone like an opal sea 
 
 In wavy lines of inter-melting shade. 
 
 Around the drap ried walls, reaching beyond 
 
 The circling pillars of the royal dome 
 
 In all ways save the rear ; from pedestal, 
 
 And bracket, and pilastered niche, looked out 
 
 Many a graven image of white marble, 
 
 And polished ivory, and gilded wood, 
 
 With form and features of great heroes past, 
 
 Of celebrated warriors, gifted sages, 
 
 Of foreign gods and personated virtues 
 
 Chiselled in swelling bust and full-length statue. 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 
 
 And many were the spoils of Persia s wars, 
 And some had grown beneath the magic touch 
 Of Canachus and those who with him strove 
 With first success to wed Art unto Nature 
 In closest semblance ; yet who sought to clothe 
 The Arts and Virtues, and the gods of Greece 
 In human form, forever yet Divine 
 And most suggestive to the human heart, 
 And, so, most claiming human sympathy 
 And reverential worship. 
 
 Toward the rear, 
 
 And facing the broad, polished, brazen gate 
 Of the main entrance to the great rotunda, 
 Upon his golden throne, whose lion feet 
 Pressed on a platform of the whitest marble 
 Approached by marble steps, and at the pave 
 On either side flanked by a winged monster, 
 Half human and half beast, of carven stone, 
 The King Ahasuerus sate. On either side 
 Near to the throne there crouched a gilded lion, 
 And o er his head there arched a canopy 
 Of finest Indian silk, befringed with gold, 
 Upheld by golden posts, and broidered o er 
 With battle scenes and pictures of the chase. 
 A score of armored spearmen on the steps 
 
22 VASHTI. 
 
 Two upon each in facing, rising lines 
 Thus guarded the approach unto the King 
 From winged sphynxes to the golden throne ; 
 And when the noble guests had entered in 
 To the great circled chamber of the throne 
 With its tall fluted pillars ranged around 
 With curtains op ning into flanking halls, 
 Each did prostrate himself before the King, 
 Who then arose, outstretched the golden sceptre, 
 Bade all arise, then took one forward step, 
 And spake his greeting thus : 
 
 " Kings, satraps, princes ! 
 Chieftains, wise men of state, and counsellors ! 
 May joy attend you as our welcome doth 
 In this our capitol and palace Shushan. 
 And further still, in this behalf, pray you, 
 Accept our royal thanks, in that ye came 
 So promptly to us at our instance here 
 (Proving full well your love and loyalty), 
 That we might see you all, and speak with you 
 Concerning various matters of our realm 
 Wherein we all have common interest ; 
 So, too, ye meet ourself, and one another, 
 And so, each knowing all, all knowing each ! 
 We may the better for our glorious empire 
 Take common counsel and united action 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 23 
 
 Should the occasion come, and thus prepared, 
 
 With the just sanction of the immortal gods 
 
 We shall be able still, as we have been, 
 
 To well uphold, or even to extend 
 
 The wise dominion of our common realm. 
 
 One thing provokes our wrath as may it yours 
 
 The arrogance of the Athenians, 
 
 Who since they scaped destruction at the hands 
 
 Of our majestic father, great Darius, 
 
 And through the intervention of their gods 
 
 Obtained the victory at Marathon, 
 
 Have grown so mighty in their own esteem, 
 
 And yet withal so blunt, so insolent, 
 
 And so defiant of our Persian power 
 
 As well to earn chastisement. Sparta, too, 
 
 Is contumacious, and with other states 
 
 Beyond the ^Egean, may make common cause 
 
 With these most boastful men of Attica 
 
 These braggart burners of our city, Sardis, 1 
 
 And so oppose our arms with no mean force ; 
 
 Yet, the more sure shall be their overthrow, 
 
 By your good service, when the time shall come. 
 
 1 During the Ionian revolt an expedition was led against Sardis in 
 which the Athenians joined, during the reign of Darius. The ex 
 pedition * had taken Sardis it had burned one of the chief cities of 
 the Great King." Rawlinson s An. Men., vol. ii., p. 482. 
 
24 VASHTI. 
 
 After the term of our festivities 
 
 And the full season of due preparation, 
 
 Then shall the mightiest host that man e er saw 
 
 The embattled force of all our provinces, 
 
 A multitude whose tread shall shake the hills 
 
 Tramp under foot our boastful enemies 
 
 To the great glory of our whole domain 
 
 To whose most splendid seat ye now are come 
 
 To be awhile our guests, partake our cheer, 
 
 And look upon our glory, and your own, 
 
 Vouchsafed us by the gods. Welcome again ! 
 
 Be happy and content ! " 
 
 So having said, 
 
 The King resumed his seat upon the throne 
 And stretching out before him his right hand 
 He waved the golden sceptre to ard the throng 
 Denoting thus that he who would might speak 
 For all, or for himself. 
 
 Then stepping forth, 
 
 One claiming kin with great Nebuchadnezzar 
 (Whose fame and greatness once had filled the earth) 
 And King of Babylon by sufferance 
 Dividing rule with a cold Persian satrap 
 Appointed by great Xerxes for his wisdom, 
 His firmness, and his Zoroastrian zeal 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 2$ 
 
 Bowed very low and then addressed the throne 
 Speaking for self and all the company, 
 And thus : 
 
 " O, King of Kings, live on forever ! 
 Reign ever whilst thou livest, and be happy ! 
 When thou dost speak, the nations list and heed, 
 For like unto thee upon all the earth 
 There is not one, for glorious majesty, 
 For power, for feats of arms, for mighty deeds, 
 For wealth in goods, and wisdom in thy words, 
 Thou art above all others save the gods 
 In strength to overcome thine enemies 
 And to uphold thy friends ! Thy subjects we, 
 Rulers by thee, and for thee, in thy stead, 
 From all the more than hundred provinces 
 Of thy far-reaching, and most glorious realm, 
 Have come before thee here at thy behest 
 Feeling much honored ; and we pledge thee here 
 On bended knees, before thy kingly throne, 
 Our trusty faith and deathless fealty, 
 Our heart s blood and the full strength of our arms 
 In the upholding of thy matchless empire 
 And the chastisement of thine enemies, 
 Come whence they may, or if thou go to them, 
 In the extending further of thy sway 
 Over the world that knows thee not as yet 
 
26 VASHTI. 
 
 As King above all others. Furthermore, 
 O King ! extend unto thy Queen, our Queen, 
 The fair and faultless Vashti (whom we love 
 For her great virtues as we love our mothers), 
 Our reverential homage and our prayers. 
 Dismiss thy servant, he has had his say." 
 
 How was the haughty humbled ! Babylon, 
 
 Whose fierce imperious pride once could have brooked 
 
 Naught but submission to her own behests 
 
 Whose learning was the treasure of the world 
 
 Whose art had reared on high the world s fourth 
 
 wonder 
 
 Who from her massive walls and brazen gates 
 Had mocked and sneered defiance at the nations 
 Babylon, who, bitter and merciless, 
 Had dragged her conquered to captivity, 
 Or given them, disarmed, unto the sword, 
 With insolent taunts of the fine privilege 
 Of being slaughtered by so great a power 
 How abject was she now, praising her chains 
 And glorifying him who kept them locked 
 About her once free limbs ; a sycophant, 
 Mouthpiece of sycophants, who under stress 
 Proclaim their own abasement. 
 
 Babylon 
 
THE GREA t FAIR A T SHUSHAN. 2J 
 
 Being dismissed, the King called his musicians, 
 
 The singers of the court, the psalterers, 
 
 Harpers, and those who play the mellow lute, 
 
 To come before his majesty and sing 
 
 And play before his august company 
 
 His guests assembled ; and they came and stood 
 
 A goodly company and all trained singers, 
 
 One from each tribe and nation, till they told 
 
 More than a hundred nations of the realm, 
 
 And standing there four deep, they raised their voices, 
 
 And strumming to themselves accomp niment 
 
 Sang with a wondrous volume and rich cadence 
 
 Thus, to the assembled nations : 
 
 SONG OF THE NATIONS. 
 
 " Come sounding from the Memphian tombs 
 
 The triumphs of the Pharaohs ; 
 Comes echoing from the Tyrian looms 
 
 The tale of how Phoenicia rose ; 
 The rebuilt temple courts the sun 
 Whose glory shone on Solomon 
 
 And on Judea s woes. 
 
 " Still Babylon s wondrous splendor dwells 
 Within her brazen gates and halls ; 
 
28 VASHTI. 
 
 Assyria her greatness tells 
 
 From Nineveh s half-buried walls ; 
 The old-time fame of Araby 
 Comes breathing o er her deserts free 
 In incense-laden calls. 
 
 " Of old the mighty Indus spread 
 
 The prestige of the Indian name ; 
 The Nile tells how Sabaco led 
 
 His Ethiopians down to fame ; 
 Proud Baalbec s mighty temple sings 
 The fiery song of Syria s kings 
 Which glory fans to flame. 
 
 " A hundred voices of the sea 
 
 Speak of proud Grecia s hundred isles, 
 Her art and her philosophy, 
 
 And from Ionia s splendid piles 
 The cunning of her builders hands 
 Hath shed its light in many lands 
 
 Like to the sun-god s smiles. 
 
 " The Lydian streams o er golden sands 
 Flow murm ring to the list ning sea, 
 Telling where glorious Sardis stands 
 Proud of her fame and history. 
 
THE GREA T FAIR A T SHU SHAN. 2g 
 
 Armenia s ark-famed mountain peak 1 
 And Bactria s lofty banners a speak : 
 The pride of heroes we/ 
 
 " Now all the glories that we sing 
 
 Of all the glorious nations named 
 
 Unite in thy great realm, O King, 
 And all the fame of all the famed 
 
 Mong nations, neath thy royal crown, 
 
 Is heightened by a wide renown 
 More than each erst had known. 
 
 " Sits Persia on her tabled plains 
 
 A goddess mong the nations fair 
 O er which Ahasuerus reigns, 
 
 And lo, the nations gathered here 
 Before great Xerxes golden throne 
 Behold a glory half their own 
 
 That Persia loves to share." 
 
 1 Ararat. 
 
 2 " Bactria was a country which enjoyed the reputation of having 
 been great and glorious at a very early date. In one of the most 
 ancient portions of the Zendavesta it was celebrated as Bakhdi 
 eredhwo drofsha or Bactria with the lofty banner. " Rawlinson, 
 Seven Great Monarchies, vol. ii., p. 440. 
 
3O VASHTI. 
 
 After the song, and sev ral melodies 
 
 In which the hundred joined with instruments, 
 
 In a sweet wilderness of chording sounds 
 
 A company of dancing girls were called, 
 
 Gazelle-eyed Persian maids and fair-haired Greeks, 
 
 Damsels, with eyes of night, from famed Meroe, 
 
 Egypta s full-lipped daughters, lovely Medes, 
 
 Fair Scythian slave-girls, captive Jewesses, 
 
 Lithe Indian maidens, graceful as wild swans, 
 
 A sprightly band, as beautiful as nymphs, 
 
 With willowy forms and finely rounded limbs ; 
 
 They came before the royal company 
 
 And to the notes of lute and clarionet 
 
 Danced with a sylph-like grace, and as they danced 
 
 The pearls that hung about their necks in strings 
 
 Lay milky-white upon their heaving breasts ; 
 
 Their anklet bells tinkled a tiny rhythm, 
 
 Their jewelled arms flashed in the mazy whirl, 
 
 Heightening the charm of youth on their flushed cheeks, 
 
 And their bright eyes shone with a witching light, 
 
 While scarce their feet appeared to touch the floor, 
 
 So did their warm young spirits seem absorbed, 
 
 And they so buoyed, by the enchanting spell 
 
 Of music-prompted motion. Forming at length 
 
 In a wide circle, hand in hand they moved 
 
 With motions similar and steps well timed, 
 
THE GREA T FAIR A T SHU SHAN. 
 
 Then broke in single line and disappeared 
 Whence they had come. 
 
 Now, after these had gone, 
 A company of giants, huge and tall, 
 One each, from all the nations, strode along 
 And formed before the throne a crescent line 
 Saluting all, the King ; and lo, there stood 
 On the extended, open palm of each, 
 On the right side, a dwarf of the same tribe, 
 Clad and accoutred e en as was the wont 
 Of the true warriors of their sev ral tribes ; 
 And thus was represented the armed power 
 And the upholding strength of all the realm 
 Hedging about the Great King, on his throne, 
 Before the gathered nations. Then the dwarfs 
 Leaped from the giants palms unto the pave 
 And formed into a square, and there performed 
 The warlike evolutions of trained troops 
 Of all the various tribes, each being trained 
 In all the various movements of the others, 
 All going through the whole in unison 
 With wonderful precision. Then all bowed 
 And marched from view. The brawny giants then 
 Exhibited feats of prodigious strength, 
 Each one excelling in some special sense 
 And gaming plaudits from the company ; 
 
32 VASHTL 
 
 And when all quit at length the royal presence 
 
 A gray-beard Indian juggler came in view, 
 
 Bearing a bamboo wand, tipt with a star 
 
 A star emitting a most wondrous light, 
 
 Yet not, as it might seem, fixed to the wand, 
 
 And made of polished metal, glit ring gem, 
 
 Or any substance that men understood, 
 
 But an effulgent spot with pointed rays 
 
 Spreading in all ways from the radiant centre 
 
 And clinging like a magnet to the tip 
 
 Of that plain, simple reed, and resting there 
 
 When e er the wand was still, and when not so, 
 
 Then chasing after, like as doth a shadow 
 
 Follow a substance in the shining sun ; 
 
 And as he stood beneath an arche d passage 
 
 He seemed a moment to be lost in thought, 
 
 Then made a low obeisance to the King 
 
 And to the royal guests, then waved his wand, 
 
 With a slow, circling motion, in the air, 
 
 When lo ! there stood before him, in an instant, 
 
 Coming no one knew whence, or how, or why, 
 
 A dozen tawny men, some young, some old, 
 
 All seeming by their garb and subtle movements 
 
 To be of the same calling with the first, 
 
 And they did there perform such wondrous feats, 
 
 Such arts of magic, cunning conjurings, 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHUSHAN. 
 
 And dextrous tricks, astonishing eye and ear, 
 As quite surprised, as well as entertained 
 And mystified all who beheld. 
 
 At length, 
 
 Again the gray-beard wizard waved his wand 
 And stamped his foot, and lo ! he was alone. 
 Then bowing low once more before the King, 
 He cast his eyes about him and above, 
 And with his star-tipped reed waved once again, 
 Telling a circle slowly through the air, 
 Then uttered a few strange, mysterious words, 
 At which a half score vaguely outlined shapes 
 Enshrouded in white vapor, and illumed 
 With all the thousand lamps that hung above, 
 Moved, floating in mid-air above the pave 
 Till in the central space before the throne, 
 Then rested ; when the mist part cleared away, 
 Revealing now reclining on a cloud, 
 In miniature, that lay in fleecy banks 
 Beneath them, and about their naked feet 
 A semicircle of the loveliest forms, 
 And faces the most beautiful to view 
 That men on earth did ever look upon, 
 Bright-eyed and glorious-haired, ripe-limbed 
 And ruby-lipped, a lovely company 
 A band of Peris yet awhile detained 
 
34 VASHTl. 
 
 From the celestial fields of Paradise 
 
 (Sweet innocency and seraphic smiles 
 
 Lighting their beauteous faces), summoned here, 
 
 A spectacle before the wondering nations ; 
 
 And while all looked and marvelled, moving back, 
 
 Waving his mystic wand, the sorcerer 
 
 Slowly withdrew, bowing himself from sight ; 
 
 And as he did so those fair virgin forms 
 
 Slowly dissolved from view, faded away, 
 
 Until it seemed the space where they had lain 
 
 Recumbent in the air was twice more vacant 
 
 Than all the empty space surrounding it. 
 
 Thus with diversions various and strange 
 
 Did the great King contrive to please his guests 
 
 Throughout the evening hours ; and so for months, 
 
 Day after day, and night succeeding night, 
 
 With state ceremonials or imposing pageant, 
 
 Some musical rehearsal, priestly rite 
 
 (Wherein each people worshipped as they would 
 
 According to their several beliefs 
 
 And stablished customs, serving their own gods), 
 
 Some wondrous feats of supple acrobats, 
 
 Wild dances and resplendent pantomimes, 
 
 Displays of horsemanship by the lithe Arabs, 
 
 The nomad Scyths, and agile Parthians 
 
 All mounted on their best-trained, swiftest steeds ; 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 35 
 
 Wrestling among the athletes of the tribes 
 Of the whole empire ; trials of rude strength, 
 And friendly tournaments and jousts at arms, 
 Were the hours rilled with rounds of joy and pleasure ; 
 Beside the feastings and the merry-makings 
 That for the time made Shushan the chief mart 
 And capitol of pleasure of the world. 
 
 And now for six bright merry months, the sun 
 
 Had shone on Shushan as a glorious camp 
 
 Of nations gathered to make holiday 
 
 As the invited guests of the great monarch ; 
 
 So, ere all took departure for their homes 
 
 The King proclaimed an universal feast 
 
 To all within his city, great and small, 
 
 For seven days, in the broad garden court 
 
 Of his great palace, mid most dazzling splendors ; 
 
 And all the open court where they did feast 
 
 Was paved in cunning patterns with fine marble, 
 
 Black, white, and red, and blue, all intermixed, 
 
 And laid to the design with wondrous skill, 
 
 While round about, tall and magnificent, 
 
 Rose fluted columns of white porphyry 
 
 Spanned with light, airy arches of the same, 
 
 Keyed with the tapering necks of double griffins, 
 
 Whose sturdy heads, faced right and left aloft, 
 
36 VASHTI. 
 
 Formed short pilasters for a carven cornice ; 
 
 And twixt the columns stretched fine linen cords, 
 
 Pale blue and purple, looped o er hooks of gold, 
 
 And from the cords, on burnished silver rings, 
 
 Hung fairy clouds of textile handiwork 
 
 Damaskan hangings, curtains from Kashmir, 
 
 Rich silks in patterns from the Indian looms, 
 
 Fine textiles wrought in Babylon and Tyre, 
 
 Rare stuffs in green, and gold, and blue, and white, 
 
 Caught back between the pillars here and there 
 
 In folds of shimmering lustre, and made fast 
 
 O er golden roses set on silver stems 
 
 Fixed in the columns shafts ; while all within 
 
 Were scores of playing fountains ranged about 
 
 Spurting their cooling waters high in air ; 
 
 And here and there a clump of stately palms 
 
 Surrounded by a lovely bit of sward, 
 
 Roses in bloom, and clumps of greenery 
 
 Like sweet oases in a marble desert, 
 
 Smiled Nature s smile, there, in the midst of Art. 
 
 And all the beds whereon the guests reclined 
 
 While at the royal board, were of fine woods, 
 
 All richly carven, inlaid with fine gold 
 
 And holstered with rare textiles and bright furs, 
 
 And every guest was giv n a golden cup 
 
 Each dif ring from the rest wherefrom he drank 
 
THE GREA T FAIR A T SHUSH AN. 37 
 
 Wine, from the royal vintage, rare and old, 
 Crushed from the luscious grapes of sunny Helbon ; 
 And every one did drink e en as he listed, 
 None urging, none withholding, but all free, 
 Till on the seventh and last day of the banquet, 
 The King, being full merry with much wine, 
 And so warmed by the gen rous drink, and all 
 His senses dulled to strict propriety, 
 And in his heart desiring much that Vashti 
 Whom graciously the people reverenced 
 Should come before the assembled company 
 (Now merry in their cups and full of speech), 
 Unveiled, wearing the royal crown and robes, 
 That all the people there, might thus behold 
 Her wondrous beauty and sweet queenly grace, 
 Ordered his chamberlains to summon her 
 Thus to the kingly presence and forthwith ; 
 Closing the hasty order to them thus : 
 " Tell her the King awaits her ! Let her come ! " 
 
 And so they went and did the king s command, 
 And Vashti, knowing of the flow of wine 
 Among the thousands feasting with the King, 
 And being busied with her own fair guests, 
 Was much amazed to hear the king s behest, 
 And thinking surely there was some mistake 
 
38 VASHTI. 
 
 Went not, but told the chamberlains to come 
 
 Yet once again, were t still the king s desire, 
 
 And she would hasten to him. So they did 
 
 And came before the King, when cold Harbona, 
 
 With fixed, immobile face, while bowing down 
 
 Thus spake their message to Ahasuerus : 
 
 " O King, live thou forever ! Thy fair queen 
 
 Bade us repair to thee, and say to thee : 
 
 If this thing be thy wish unalterable 
 
 To send us once again, and she will come 
 
 In haste to do thy bidding, dutiful 
 
 In full obedience." 
 
 Then the King with rage 
 
 Grew red, and stamped his foot and swore an oath 
 " By great Cambyses sword ! Am I defied 
 In my own household ? and by my own queen ? " 
 Then turning fiercely on the chamberlains 
 He ordered them away but not to Vashti ; 
 And when he had in measure quieted 
 The storm of passion raging in his soul 
 He spake unto the wise men who sat near 
 The seven princes first in all the realm 
 In the King s favor, and his counsellors 
 Saying : " According to the law, of right 
 What should be done to our rebellious queen 
 
THE GREA T FAIR A T SHU SHAN. 39 
 
 Who thus hath set at naught our just commands 
 In presence of our realm, here represented 
 By our illustrious guests convened at Shushan ? " 
 And Memucan, most forward of the seven 
 And readiest in expedient and speech, 
 Made answer to the King, and thus : 
 
 " O King ! 
 
 Vashti the queen hath done most grievous wrong 
 In this her stiff-necked disobedience, 
 And not to thee alone, but unto all 
 Thy princes, and all men throughout the realm ; 
 For this deed of the queen shall go abroad 
 On eagles wings and speak with clam rous tongues, 
 So that all women soon shall hear of it, 
 And shall despise their husbands ; even so 
 Our ladies here in Persia, Media, 
 Shall treat thy princes, hearing of this deed. 
 If this thing go unpunished, unrebuked, 
 Who, of the countless husbands in the land 
 Shall after this hold sway in his own house ? 
 Or if some may by dint of self-assertion 
 Manage to govern still in their own homes, 
 Yet were it true, the queen hath this day sown 
 The seeds of such domestic bickerings, 
 Mockings, denials of authority, 
 
4O VASHTI. 
 
 Railings, dissimulations, and contempts, 
 
 As in their springing up and noxious growth 
 
 Will smother quiet peace and harmony 
 
 And blossom with dissensions, spleen and wrath 
 
 And all confusions. Now, O King, 
 
 If it so please thee, let it be decreed 
 
 As thy commandment royal, and be writ 
 
 Among our laws, that it may not be changed, 
 
 That Vashti come no more before the King ; 
 
 And do thou give away her whole estate 
 
 And her insignia of royalty 
 
 Unto another worthier than she ; 
 
 So, when thou hast commanded and decreed 
 
 And published the decree throughout the realm, 
 
 All wives shall yield obedience to their husbands 
 
 And duly honor them." 
 
 The King seemed pleased 
 With these suggestions of fierce Memucan, 
 And being stayed, and their cool reason checked 
 By the hot torrent of his sounding words 
 No other prince did raise his voice against it ; 
 And so the King proclaimed, e en as advised, 
 With many else severe particulars, 
 And so decreed against the youthful queen, 
 And all was written down among the laws 
 Of Media and Persia, by the scribes. 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 41 
 
 Then went there criers through the city Shushan, 
 And couriers post-haste thro all the realm 
 To publish what was writ, in many tongues, 
 To make it understood mong all the people. 
 
 Next day the King did call the eunuchs in 
 Even the seven trusty chamberlains, 
 And as they waited near on bended knees 
 Cowering before the King s still blazing wrath 
 He spake unto them saying : 
 
 " Slaves, attend ! 
 
 Go to the woman Vashti ! Our decree 
 Fail not to execute, but carry out 
 Even to the very letter as t is writ ! 
 Rid her of all her goods ! Rid me of her ! 
 This palace rid of disobedience ! 
 The law is your instruction ! Now be gone ! " 
 
 So they went forth into the women s house 
 And in a half hour s course came Mehuman 
 One of the seven, noted for his great strength, 
 Kindness of heart, and never- daunted courage 
 Again before the King, and stood there pale 
 As marble statue, and he seemed as calm. 
 Then, bowing low at first, stood up erect 
 And spake unto the King whose cloudy brow 
 
42 VASHTI. 
 
 Frowned fiercely on him as he said and thus : 
 
 " O King, pardon thy humblest slave, or let 
 
 Thy vengeance smite him, as thou seest fit, 
 
 For from my heart the queen did wring a promise 
 
 To come to thee and say : * Ahasuerus, King 
 
 Of Persia, Media, and the provinces 
 
 Did promise unto Vashti his young queen 
 
 Upon her nuptial day, that any wish 
 
 She then did have, or after might express, 
 
 E en to the granting of one half his kingdom, 
 
 Should not be made in vain ! And now the queen 
 
 Doth humbly beg of him to stretch his hand 
 
 Forth with the golden staff that she may come 
 
 To speak her wish before him, and to shew 
 
 The innocency of her breaking heart 
 
 Plainly unto him. " Purpling with wild rage 
 
 Thus brake the King upon him : 
 
 " Daring knave ! 
 
 Emasculated worm ! Mutinous wretch ! 
 How durst thou stand and look me in the face 
 And speak to me of given promises ? 
 Go tell the woman that the thing she says 
 Was spoken to the queen ! She is not such, 
 But a banned outcast ! Go, mad fool ! 
 Do as thou rt bid ; and know that on the morrow 
 Thy traitorous tongue that thus dared speak to me, 
 
THE GREAT FAIR AT SHU SHAN. 43 
 
 Shall be cut from thy mouth, and thy cold eyes 
 
 That dared look unabashed into my face 
 
 While thou didst speak thy treason, shall be made 
 
 That they may never so again offend." 
 
 So he who knew not fear, went forth in silence 
 
 To duty, and to doom, each worse than death. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 VASHTI. 
 
 A S rose the Summer sun above the plain 
 ** Stretching away to ard the Sargatian desert, 
 In a lone outskirt of the city Shushan, 
 Beside a walled-in pool, beneath the shelter 
 Of some great palms that clustered round about 
 As if they too had come to quench their thirst 
 With the cool waters that they hedged around, 
 A woman young and fair, but with the seal 
 Of grief set deep upon her youthful face 
 A woman in the coarse garb of disgrace 
 And deep humiliation, stooping, dipped 
 A gourd of water from the pool and drank ; 
 And when she d slaked her thirst she looked about, 
 Heaved a deep sigh, then gazed into the pool, 
 Saying : " This still is left ! I may come here 
 Even as the beggars do ; and if I haste 
 To come at early morn, I yet may drink 
 
 44 
 
VASHTI. 45 
 
 Without disturbing any other soul 
 
 With my shunned, dreaded presence ; and the Sun 
 
 Mithra ! in the glory of thy rising, 
 
 1 still may look upon and worship thee, 
 As being the best gift of the all-wise 
 And all-beneficent Ahura Mazda 
 
 To everything that lives upon the earth ; 
 
 And the sweet, balmy air, I breathe it still 
 
 And feast my eyes on Zagros distant summits 
 
 With no one to forbid or hinder me ; 
 
 What else ? aye, what ? A morsel now and then, 
 
 A beggar s dole, given in fear or shame 
 
 Or mayhap both. And who am I that mourn 
 
 And wail my poor estate unto myself, 
 
 Scarce knowing if the things I see are real, 
 
 Or if the griefs I feel are actual, 
 
 Or if the words I utter yet have meaning 
 
 According to the import of plain speech ? 
 
 Since scarce I know if I be sane or mad. 
 
 And since how long ? a fortnight or a month ? 
 
 Or more than this, or less ? I cannot tell ! 
 
 But it seems very long that I have suffered, 
 
 And yet so short a time since I was happy. 
 
 " Comparing what I was with what I am 
 But yesterday I was a queen whose crown 
 
46 
 
 Blazed with the glitter of a thousand gems 
 The choicest in a hundred provinces 
 Sent by a hundred tributary kings, 
 With flattering words to King Ahasuerus 
 And to myself, each begging that the stones 
 That each had sent might find an humble place 
 In my tiara. * Vashti, the gracious queen ! 
 Vashti the beautiful, whom all revere ! 
 Vashti, whose virtues are on every tongue ! 
 Vashti, the star of thy most kingly court ! 
 * Vashti, whose light is like the rising sun 
 Thro all the kingdoms of thy mighty realm ! 
 These and a hundred more of like import 
 Were honeyed messages the couriers brought 
 From all the chiefs and rulers far and near 
 In praise of Vashti. Media, Persia, sang 
 The praise of Vashti. No one save the King, 
 From Indus to the Ethiopian plains, 
 In all the tributaries of the realm 
 Had more of honors or emoluments. 
 Princes and mighty men did bring for me, 
 Laying them at the feet of the great King, 
 Rare gifts in great profusion of such kind 
 As was most perfect in their sev ral lands, 
 Incense and spices from far Araby 
 And horses fleet s the wind, and beautiful 
 
VASHTI. 47 
 
 As morning light, and graceful as gazelles. 
 And came from Tyre rich store of royal purple, 
 Yield of her looms ; rare jewels of fine gold, 
 Clasping with tiny fingers deftly wrought 
 Gems like the stars of night for brilliancy, 
 And also thence came cunning furniture 
 Wrought from the cedar wood of Lebanon, 
 Perfumed in grain and fibre with sweet scents, 
 Inlaid with gold and pearl and ivory 
 And builded for my chambers. From Kashmir, 
 And from great Babylon s and Borsippa s looms, 
 Rare shawls and costly stuffs, rich tapestries 
 And cloth of silver thread and woven gold 
 Fashioned in curious patterns and designs ; 
 Carpets and figured hangings and rare lace. 
 And from the jungles of the further East 
 Rich store of peltries wondrous tiger skins 
 Whose tawny ground traversed with glossy bars 
 Of darker fur, are to the touch as down ; 
 Leopards sleek coats, their clear-lined, ebon spots 
 Sprinkled at random on a field of gold, 
 And the soft yielding vestment of the ounce, 
 All painted by that glowing Indian sun 
 With dyes of beauty ; till my partments, draped 
 With rarest fabrics of the weaver s skill, 
 And carpeted with rugs that each had cost 
 
 
48 VASHTI. 
 
 Some jungle tyrant his ferocious life, 
 
 Were deemed a gorgeous wonder to behold ; 
 
 From those warm shores they also sent to me 
 
 Some beauteous bright-winged birds of paradise 
 
 And golden pheasants, trogans, promerops, 
 
 Until they thronged the outer groves of Shushan 
 
 And the tall trees that grace the open court 
 
 Near by the palace, which at times appeared 
 
 Abloom with life and color. From the coast 
 
 Of Caspian, and distant western shores 
 
 They brought me store of amber and quaint shells ; 
 
 And agates from the desert. From the South, 
 
 And from the tribute islands of the sea, 
 
 Opals and jaspars, sards, and turquoises, 
 
 Ambergris, and much goods of woven grass, 
 
 Rare strings of milk-white pearls, and pearls in bulk 
 
 Like winnowed seeds for plenty. From the West 
 
 The choicest offerings of Syria 
 
 And distant Egypt. So sent Palestine 
 
 Some golden relics from the house of God 
 
 From David s city, e en Jerusalem, 
 
 Part of King David s store, and Solomon s, 
 
 Broken and spoiled at the Captivity 
 
 Nor coming to Nebuchadnezzar s hand, 
 
 So not included in Great Cyrus s gift, 
 
 But of the remnant left in Israel 
 
VASHTI. 49 
 
 And being not restored were sent to me 
 As rich mementoes of a great event. 
 
 " Scarce hath a caravan from east, or west, 
 
 The plains and mountains north, or wave-washed 
 
 shores 
 
 Of southmost Araby, come into Shushan 
 In these three years that hath not brought some gift 
 (With the consent of King Ahasuerus) 
 To Vashti with the master-merchant s words 
 Of loyal reverence, till my store hath been 
 In all the realm produces, or the skill 
 Of all its peoples fashions cunningly 
 Of great abundance, and enabled me 
 (Not drawing on the King s munificence 
 At all times royal and unlimited) 
 To live in splendor as befits a queen, 
 And give with hand unstinted, as I wished. 
 So all the women of the royal house, 
 My lovely sisters wives unto the King 
 Shared in my bounty, and returned my love ; 
 For surely I did love them as my soul, 
 And as I loved none other save the King, 
 And my heart s joy, my babe, now mine no more 
 In all the world, that death has spared to me ; 
 And who could help but love them ? their sweet youth, 
 
5O VASHTI. 
 
 The innocency of their guileless lives, 
 
 Their wondrous beauty, and their helplessness, 
 
 Their trusting natures and their pretty ways, 
 
 Alone, had won a colder heart than mine. 
 
 I loved them further that they loved the King, 
 
 Who took delight in their companionship 
 
 Next to my own ; and often in the court, 
 
 Or place in common of the women s house, 
 
 They gathered round me like a wall of flowers 
 
 And held their pretty lips up to be kissed, 
 
 And twined their soft arms round my neck and spake 
 
 Such tender words, so full of boundless love, 
 
 So laden with desire to please me well, 
 
 That, tho I was as young as most of them, 
 
 I came to look upon the fairy nymphs 
 
 As my own children in reality, 
 
 As oft they called themselves in their sweet speech ; 
 
 And I would look upon them with a pride 
 
 Such as methinks a mother well might feel 
 
 In feasting her fond eyes on the fair forms 
 
 And fairer faces of her own sweet daughters 
 
 Grown to the first estate of womanhood 
 
 And yet still full of girlish playfulness. 
 
 Oft, too, with psaltery and tuneful lute 
 
 They played to give me joy, until the drops 
 
 Of glittering water thrown up from the jets. 
 
VASHTL 51 
 
 Of the surrounding, ever-playing fountains 
 
 Like showers of shining pearls, on their return 
 
 Into the fountain bowls of porphyry, 
 
 Seemed like the rhythmic falling of sweet sounds 
 
 Self-tuned and mingled into melody. 
 
 And some would raise their voices clear and soft 
 
 As balmy breezes wantoning o er the strings 
 
 Of an else-untouched harp, and improvise, 
 
 At times, some little song to praise the queen ; 
 
 And in my desolation, even now 
 
 One of these little nothings to my lips 
 
 Springs all unbidden, and the irony 
 
 Of changed conditions gives to it a voice, 
 
 Of mocking bitterness, and yet its words 
 
 Do fascinate me in my misery, 
 
 And thus I seem to hear them in the air. 
 
 " VASHTI OUR QUEEN. 
 
 " * All hail, our lovely queen, 
 
 The first of women she, 
 
 Of whom no evil can be said, 
 
 To whom all Media bows the head 
 
 And Persia bends the knee. 
 
 " In beauty unsurpassed, 
 Yet not so fair as good, 
 
52 VASHTI. 
 
 Queen of a hundred states and thrones 
 And loved of all, thy worth atones 
 All sins of womanhood. 
 
 " Our great King s life and love 
 Are centred in thy eyes, 
 For Vashti is the queenly star 
 Who lights the throne of Persia far, 
 As Orion lights the skies 
 
 " From Ethiopia s sands 
 To Indus s watery wall 
 Is Vashti s goodness as the rain 
 That falls upon the thirsty plain 
 A heritage to all. 
 
 " What a strange commentary on my past 
 Would be the recitation of my present ! 
 But I ve no need to speak my present state, 
 It is upon me visible to all, 
 And more apparent to myself than any ; 
 Others behold me but a little while, 
 One for a moment now, another then, 
 But to myself I always am in sight, 
 And should I wish to quite forget myself 
 And draw a veil of darkness o er the past 
 
VASPITL 53 
 
 Some finger will be raised at me in scorn, 
 Some voice will mutter * Vashti, dreaded name, 
 Which but to speak aloud will clear the ground 
 Of ev ry thing that s human and can hear 
 About me like a sudden thunderbolt 
 That threatens repetition where it falls. 
 
 " My fair young sisters of the women s house, 
 
 I never shall set eyes on them again ! 
 
 No more shall I behold my little son, 
 
 Nor shall I ever look upon the King, 
 
 For when he goes abroad the streets are cleared 
 
 Or all unworthies against whom a ban 
 
 Of any sort hath been decreed and writ. 
 
 And the great palace, and the royal grounds 
 
 Are doubly guarded against such as I, 
 
 While those whose duty is not to repel, 
 
 Flee from me like the touch of pestilence. 
 
 The common people whom I always helped 
 
 In some way by a silent charity 
 
 Shrink from my presence with averted looks 
 
 And downcast faces. Bondsmen and rude slaves 
 
 Hold me beneath them. Beggars turn aside 
 
 As tho* I were contagion. Yesterday, 
 
 While wandering aimlessly, thoughtlessly, straying 
 
 Beyond the city s limits till I came, 
 
54 VASHTI. 
 
 Not knowing it, to some low wretched huts 
 
 Given over to the moving breathing dead, 
 
 A shrivelled leper, hideous with sores, 
 
 But chanced to hear my name, as I passed by 
 
 The little open area where he lay 
 
 Sunning the relics of his misery, 
 
 When, with a piteous groan, he crawled away, 
 
 Dragging his dead limbs after, in such haste, 
 
 With such a seeming agony of fear 
 
 Portrayed on his wild hopeless face, as he 
 
 Cast o er his shoulder one despairing glance, 
 
 As filled my soul with horror. This poor wretch 
 
 In whose decaying frame besieging death 
 
 Mocked at the feeble garrison of life 
 
 This poor and half-dead lump of loathsomeness, 
 
 Instead of fleeing with the cry unclean 
 
 To warn against infection through himself, 
 
 Seemed terrified lest that my moral taint 
 
 Should spread upon the atmosphere he breathed 
 
 And, mingling with the humors of his flesh, 
 
 Thus work his quick extinction. 
 
 " O poor soul ! 
 
 When I have thought of such as he, ere now, 
 It seemed to me the harvest of all woes, 
 The sum of all the earth s calamities 
 Was heaped upon them, and that sudden death, 
 
VASHTI. 55 
 
 Would be of all things what they most desired 
 
 And prayed for most when they invoked their gods ; 
 
 And yet this man, this worst of all, this prince 
 
 Of all the world s afflicted, as I think, 
 
 Betrayed such fear as shewed a love of life 
 
 And a keen sense of nice propriety. 
 
 And why should they show fear to whom this life 
 
 Would seem an awful burthen ? why shun death, 
 
 If but a severance from misery 
 
 And the deep loathing of their fellow men, 
 
 Unless their life has still some pleasant sense 
 
 In all its waste of pain and bitterness 
 
 Some green oasis, bright with trees and flowers, 
 
 And cool and fresh with never-failing springs 
 
 Amidst the weary desert of their ills, 
 
 Or some fair island, smiling far away, 
 
 In all their ocean of calamity ? 
 
 It must be thus ! else had this blighted wretch 
 
 Ne er shown such signs of abject piteous fear. 
 
 And I, to think that I inspired such fear ! 
 
 I, who so oft compassioned such as he, 
 
 Myself not granted e en his poor compassion, 
 
 But only feared and fled from. I so soon 
 
 (For it doth seem me as but yesterday) 
 
 From being the first woman in the world, 
 
 Queen o er a hundred nations, am proclaimed 
 
56 VASHTI. 
 
 The veriest outcast in the universe, 
 Shunned and avoided most of all that live 
 Within the shadow of the throne I shared. 
 
 " And why ? what have I done against the law ? 
 
 What sin have I committed that s too black 
 
 To be forgiven alike of gods and men ? 
 
 Have I wrought any mischief in the realm 
 
 By covert treason, or unbridled speech ? 
 
 Have I been cruel to the populace, 
 
 Using th king s favor to do deeds of blood 
 
 Or any manner of oppressive wrong? 
 
 Have I strayed from the faith of Zoroaster? 
 
 Or failed in aught toward our Persian gods ? 
 
 Or kindled the king s wrath against the Magi ? 
 
 Or lacked in reverence for Aura Mazda ? 
 
 Or of the sacred fire that ever burns 
 
 On our hill temples ever holy altars ? 
 
 No, surely no, not any one of these ! 
 
 Brought I dishonor to the royal bed ? 
 
 Or played with my affections for the King ? 
 
 Or brought I any scandal to the court ? 
 
 Or was I filled with idle vanities 
 
 Seeking the praise of all the empire s people, 
 
 Save as a woman may at all times seek 
 
 The whole world s praise by trying to do good ? 
 
VASHTI. 57 
 
 No, no again ! again a thousand times ! 
 
 How wildly beats my poor heart in my breast 
 
 As tho twere wounded by the questioned thought ! 
 
 How does it throb to vindicate itself 
 
 Till each pulsation is a clamorous No ! 
 
 Have I shown aught but kindness to the King ? 
 
 Or, knowing what he willed, have I withheld 
 
 To yield unto his will obedience ? 
 
 Alas ! my troubled soul doth seem to sink 
 
 And almost die within me when I hear 
 
 Or think of that one word obedience. 
 
 For lack of it behold me what I am ! 
 
 An outcast wanderer, whom to cheer or aid 
 
 Is but to court displeasure of the King ! 
 
 For lack of it I am robbed of a crown 
 
 And turned adrift clothed in a beggar s rags . 
 
 For lack of it I ve lost a Kingdom s homage, 
 
 And found a Kingdom s contumely instead ! 
 
 For lack of it ! but O my soul ! enough ! 
 
 I have lost all I had but this poor life, 
 
 And found all I had not, save only death ; 
 
 And if I d lost or found but one thing more 
 
 It had been better ; and the pitying breeze 
 
 (All that will listen to my poor complaint) 
 
 Had not been burdened with this breath of woe. 
 
 And yet t was only once in all my life, 
 
58 VASHTI. 
 
 Then but in form and scarcely so in fact, 
 
 That I e er thought to disobey the King ; 
 
 For when he sent to me his chamberlains 
 
 With the request that I attend at once 
 
 Before himself and all the tribute kings 
 
 And all the mighty princes of the realm 
 
 And the great captains, magnates, and what not, 
 
 To come, crowned, and unveiled before all these ; 
 
 I was astonished, grievously perplexed, 
 
 And scarce knew what I did, or what I said, 
 
 Or what I ought t have done ; for I was told 
 
 The King was quite hilarious with much wine, 
 
 And that the people, and assembled guests, 
 
 With mellow vintage all too freely used 
 
 Had laid aside much of their dignity, 
 
 And in their boist rous mirth were quaffing still 
 
 Even when the King so strangely summoned me 
 
 Unto the pillared garden of the feast 
 
 To be the target of ten thousand eyes, 
 
 All by the King s request turned upon me 
 
 To view my beauty. Over sensative, 
 
 I thought of their bold eyes and maudlin speech 
 
 (All ten times worse than was the truth, no doubt),- 
 
 And it did seem as tho I could not bear 
 
 To undergo an ordeal like that, 
 
 And that the King must surely, when he came 
 
VASHTI. 59 
 
 To view the matter calmly afterward, 
 Even praise my action, and himself be glad 
 I had withheld from coming for a while. 
 Still did I hesitate, besieged with doubts, 
 Until I chanced to think that once the King, 
 After the nuptials, on our wedding day, 
 Had told me and assured me graciously, 
 That any wish of mine made known to him, 
 E en to the giving of one half his kingdom, 
 Would speedily be granted. So I thought 
 This one offence, if such it were construed, 
 Would straightway be condoned at my request, 
 (For never had I once besought the King 
 For any favor, never having need, 
 For every wish I d had ere it found voice 
 He had anticipated, yea and more), 
 And thinking so, I bade the chamberlains 
 To take my poor excuses and regrets, 
 Which I did frame for them, unto the King, 
 And if not well received, beg to return 
 That I might yet go to him ; and they went, 
 Nor came again, and so for a short time 
 I thought that all was well ; but soon my soul 
 Was troubled with misgivings, and next day, 
 As I sat on a divan mong my maids, 
 My sisters, and the royal company 
 
60 VASHTI. 
 
 To entertain whom in the women s house 
 Had been for months my pleasant daily duty 
 I heard the criers, running thro the streets, 
 Proclaiming with loud voice unto the world 
 Words that at first I could not understand, 
 But as they came still nearer I did hear : 
 * The great King hath decreed, and it is writ 
 Down in the chronicles a changeless law 
 Of Persia, Media, and the Provinces 
 Vashti is banned for disobedience 
 Unto the King, and she shall come no more 
 Into the presence of the King, forever j 
 
 " Darkness ! I heard no more ! I saw no more ! 
 Nor lived I more, for I know not how long ; 
 For the still silence of unconsciousness 
 Enwrapt me like a mantle ; till at length, 
 When the red tide within my rigid veins 
 Moved once again in its retarded course 
 (Like day-break struggling thro a bank of clouds) 
 And consciousness returned, op ning my eyes 
 I saw again the king s seven chamberlains 
 Standing about me with fixed purposed look, 
 And all the women pale and horrified 
 Gazed on me from a little distance back 
 Wringing their hands and moaning piteously. 
 
VASHTL 61 
 
 My fair dear sisters, too, sobbed in distress, 
 
 And my sweet babe, held in his nurse s arms, 
 
 Stretched forth his little hands and crooned to me ; 
 
 Then for a moment all again was dark. 
 
 But, rallying, I tried to catch my thoughts 
 
 When one of the sev n spake and said to me 
 
 (His voice as steady as a wall of stone 
 
 His heart as seeming cold and pitiless) : 
 
 We re come to tell thee of the king s decree, 
 
 In part, in part to put it into force. 
 
 " Then he related that which I had heard 
 And this still further of the written law : 
 * That her estate be given to another 
 Better than she, her raiment, and her crown, 
 Her jewels, and her gold all that she hath 
 Is forfeited ; and in coarse convict garb 
 She shall be turned without the palace gates 
 To come no more within them. In the streets 
 All unattended shall she be put forth 
 To go whereso she listeth 
 
 " T is enough ! 
 
 I cried, enough ! Oh, let me hear no more ! 
 Go thou, Mehuman ! for thy heart is kind, 
 Oh, go ! and but implore the King for me 
 
62 VASHTI. 
 
 That he give me a moment s audience 
 That he stretch forth the golden sceptre now 
 And let me on my bended knees approach 
 To plead my poor cause with his Majesty 
 And free my soul from this imputed wrong ! 
 Oh, go ! and but remind him of his vow 
 (Made on the day that he made me his queen) 
 That any wish of mine should be his law 
 Unto its proper granting ; and that now 
 I humbly crave expression for my wish 
 In his imperial presence, for the sake 
 Of our sweet son, our pretty baby prince. 
 Frame this in thy own words, I know thou canst ! 
 
 " Poor soul ! kind-hearted, fearless Mehuman ! 
 Even as I spake the muscles of his face 
 Twitched with emotion, and his well-knit frame 
 Was all a-tremble, for, so, my deep grief 
 Had touched with sympathy his ev ry nerve ; 
 And tho he knew, not /, I d asked so much, 
 Consigning him to a worse fate than mine, 
 I saw his lips compress like plates of iron 
 Impinging each on each ; even as he turned 
 And vowed to do my bidding, while the rest 
 Stood coldly, unconcernedly anear, 
 As tho t were matter of small consequence 
 
VASHTI. 63 
 
 However my poor pray r should be received, 
 Or what reply my messenger should bring ; 
 But now I blame them not : too well they knew 
 The hopelessness of my forlorn appeal 
 From what in Persia hath been once decreed, 
 And that t was dangerous to show concern 
 In such a matter. 
 
 " Soon Mehuman came 
 Returning from the presence of the King 
 And as he did approach I soon observed 
 A deathly pallor was upon his face ; 
 And then I knew full well there was no hope ; 
 Yet that brave tongue that dared to plead for me 
 Spake once again, because I did command 
 Spake then, and thus, then spake again no more : 
 The King denies thy suit, retorting that 
 The promise which he made was to the queen 
 And that thou art not such j and that the King 
 More than the subject may not break the law, 
 Bade me return to execute the law 
 Anddrave me forth in anger 
 
 " Why I lived, 
 
 Or how I could live, after hearing this 
 I know not, but the first wild surging flood 
 Of anguish that had swept across my soul 
 
64 VASHTI. 
 
 Had left me little more that I could suffer ; 
 
 And these strange, awful words but stupefied 
 
 The keenness of my grief and left me mute, 
 
 Brooding upon my great calamity 
 
 Until cold Carcas, foremost of the seven, 
 
 Came near to me and took from off my head 
 
 The jewelled diadem of Persia s queen ; 
 
 And the rare necklace of white shimmering pearls 
 
 He loosened from their place, and one by one 
 
 Bade me take off my bracelets and my rings, 
 
 The coil of diamonds plaited in my hair, 
 
 And all the jewels that adorned my robes ; 
 
 Then called two female slaves to lead me forth 
 
 Into a chamber to disrobe me there 
 
 And clothe me for expulsion to the streets. 
 
 " Soon it was done, and I led out again 
 
 A convict outcast, like a menial clad, 
 
 To look my last farewell with frenzied eyes 
 
 At the fair court where I had reigned a queen- 
 
 At my sweet home of beauty, mine no more ; 
 
 But all things else seemed trivial and vain, 
 
 In that sad moment of supreme despair, 
 
 To parting with my child, my pretty boy, 
 
 Whom they were plucking from his mother s breast 
 
 Whom they were tearing from my bleeding heart ; 
 
65 
 
 And when I begged to see him once again, 
 
 To kiss his rosebud lips, and clasp his form, 
 
 And feel the pressure of his velvet cheek, 
 
 They brought him to me ; it was good of them, 
 
 An act of kindness that it seemed to me 
 
 Was worth to me more than the world beside, 
 
 As his fair dimpled arms twined round my neck 
 
 And his pure infant heart beat its light rhythm 
 
 Against the heavy pulsings of my own, 
 
 And the sweet innocent mouth to my parched lips 
 
 Pressed showers of kisses, and cooed, * Mamma, 
 
 Mamma, 
 
 Rousing my spirit so surcharged with grief, 
 With such a subtle thrill of ecstasy 
 That it did seem the conflict of the two 
 Would end in madness. 
 
 " Then thus Carcas spake : 
 * It is enough ! We must perform our duty ! 
 Now put away the child, and get thee hence ! 
 And laying hands on me they held me fast 
 Forcing my little one from my embrace, 
 And bearing him away from me, mid sobs 
 Of my affrighted sisters ; then again 
 The darkness came upon me, and without 
 They carried me at will and left me there 
 
66 VASHTI. 
 
 A worse than beggar, lying on the street, 
 Upon the border-land twixt life and death. 
 
 " The sad awakening ! Oh, speech fails my lips 
 
 To give expression to the wretchedness 
 
 The deep humiliating sense, the woe, 
 
 That crept upon me with returning life. 
 
 I tried to reason with, and know, myself, 
 
 For I did seem a puzzle to myself. 
 
 To see myself in such a wretched garb 
 
 To find myself abandoned and ignored 
 
 To know that even then a thousand men, 
 
 Urged on a thousand horses at their speed 
 
 From Shushan, trav ling, like diverging rays 
 
 Out from a central sun, to reach at length 
 
 The farthest limit of the mighty realm, 
 
 And that each bore with him a formal script, 
 
 Bearing the King s sign-manual and seal, 
 
 To every ruler in the Provinces, 
 
 Writ in the sev ral various tongues of each, 
 
 Proclaiming my dishonor by the law, 
 
 And ordering these again to publish it 
 
 To all their people, so that my disgrace 
 
 And degradation might be known to all 
 
 To see, to feel, to know all this and live, 
 
 To live and still not be a maniac, 
 
VASHTI. 67 
 
 Was something that I can but marvel at. 
 How am I fallen from mine high estate ! 
 How am I punished for a thoughtless word 
 Spoken in kindness and with good intent ! 
 And punished, too, for what was not forbidden. 
 
 " Somewhere, I ve heard, that mong the Israelites 
 
 T is held their God created the first pair 
 
 And placed them on this earth in happiness, 
 
 Woman and man, their ev ry want supplied ; 
 
 Without a care or task to make them tired, 
 
 Without a sorrow or a twinge of pain, 
 
 Without the knowledge or the fear of death 
 
 Nor under death s domain, being immortal ; 
 
 That in a wondrous garden where they dwelt 
 
 Were trees of beauty whose wide-spreading boughs 
 
 Thatched with their own bright leaves, forever green, 
 
 Sheltered their bodies from the mid-day sun, 
 
 And formed the circling bow rs neath which they 
 
 passed 
 
 Their honeyed hours of sleep and mutual love ; 
 That over them the sky forever blue 
 Smiled in calm majesty, and bloomed at night 
 With all its countless myriads of stars 
 Always unclouded ; that a river flowed 
 Broad and meandering thro their fair domain, 
 
68 VASHTL 
 
 Which lay beyond the Tigris, and its clear 
 And peaceful waters, and the dews of night 
 Sustained all life without the fall of rain. 
 The brightest flowers were in perpetual bloom, 
 The air forever laden with sweet scents, 
 The fairest birds sang sweetest liquid notes 
 Within the groves, and ev ry living thing 
 That moved upon the earth, or in the air, 
 Was round about them biding all in peace, 
 And over all, and all things that had life 
 And moved within the waters, had they charge 
 And full dominion ; and of all the trees, 
 Bearing much fruit of many divers kinds, 
 None was denied them save the fruit of one 
 That stood out plainly in the garden s midst 
 And hung with clusters tempting to the eye 
 Forbidden fruit, which they were warned against 
 And told that but to taste of it were death ; 
 And, that, being tempted much, by Ahriman 
 (The Evil Spirit, in a serpent s form) 
 Telling her that to eat of that one tree 
 The fruit their God had thus denied to them 
 Would be to make them as the gods in wisdom 
 And in all knowledge, the duped woman ate, 
 And having eaten bade her husband eat, 
 And he, out of compassion for his wife, 
 
VASHTI. 69 
 
 Willed that to suffer with her for her wrong 
 Was but his duty, and could scarce be worse 
 Than to be robbed of her sweet company, 
 And so he ate, and having eaten, both 
 Were driven from the garden in deep shame, 
 No more immortal, but consigned to death 
 With all their offspring, down thro all the ages, 
 Thenceforth to eat the bread of bitterness 
 Wrung by their toil from the unwilling earth ! 
 
 " Oh, that was heavy punishment indeed ! 
 Yet was it but the penalty laid down 
 As price of disobedience. But with me 
 The prohibition and the penalty 
 That which forbids and that which punishes 
 The thing for which I suffer had no life 
 Till after the commission of the act 
 Which it declared a crime and visited 
 In the same day with the dire penalties 
 Which now are crushing me without appeal 
 Without a single word in my behalf 
 Being uttered or allowed. 
 
 " Can this be just ? 
 
 No ! gods and men alike proclaim it. No ! 
 Yet I blame not the King, but Memucan 
 
7<D VASHTI. 
 
 Whose vengeful spirit sought my overthrow 
 
 For some deep, hidden purpose of his own ; 
 
 For when he found the King in angered mood 
 
 Before the semblage making inquiry 
 
 What should be done to me ; he spake no word 
 
 Extenuating in the least my fault, 
 
 Nor held himself content to name my sentence 
 
 Till he had first aroused the king s hot wrath 
 
 Still further gainst me by his poisoned words 
 
 To the sustaining of the thing he sought, 
 
 Charging my wrong as gainst both King and princes, 
 
 Aye, and against all people of the land, 
 
 And prophesying that my wayward act 
 
 Would soon unseat all husbands from their pow r 
 
 If unrebuked ; then named my punishment, 
 
 That, when decreed, all wives might thenceforth honor 
 
 Their husbands duly, and obey them well. 
 
 " And has it come that men, in their proud strength 
 And boasted courage, need to be sustained, 
 And their authority decreed, by law, 
 Over their wives ? Fie on his sophistry ! 
 Fie on the weakling princes who could stand 
 And thus be parties to their own dishonor, 
 By speaking not against the thing proposed, 
 Belittling all manhood, crushing me. 
 
VASHTI. 71 
 
 But what have I to do now with resentment, 
 Or anything but sorrow ? 
 
 " Lo ! now come 
 
 People with skins and vessels to the pool 
 To get supply of water for the day ! 
 Have I delayed so long ? an hour or more, 
 Discoursing of myself unto myself? 
 And yet when none else hear I needs must talk, 
 Not being free to talk at other times, 
 It doth divide my grief to bring my wrongs 
 To mine own hearing in the form of speech, 
 And call to feeling s aid another sense 
 To share the load it scarce can bear alone. 
 Now must I be away ! the day is long, 
 But still the night will come, and when it doth, 
 Beneath its friendly darkness I may find 
 Some sheltering nook where I may hide myself 
 And seek the dearest boon that s left me, sleep." 
 
 >J 
 
S 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 HADASSAH AND MORDECAI. 
 
 O Persia was made queenless ! but t is writ 
 - That all the fairest maidens of the realm 
 Were called to Shushan summoned fore the King, 
 As it had been appointed by his Court, 
 So she who most might please the King should be 
 Made queen in Vashti s stead. Some time ere this, 
 Within her humble home, fair Hadassah, 
 Jew Mordecai s cousin and his ward 
 A daughter of the Tribe of Benjamin 
 Whose father s father, once again removed, 
 Had with King Jeconiah been driven forth 
 To Babylon with the Captivity, 
 Standing one day before her crafty kinsman 
 Noted his gaze fixed most intently on her, 
 And his lips parted, as tho he would speak, 
 Yet spake not ; so she spake unto him, saying : 
 
 72 
 
HADASSAH AND MORDECAI. 73 
 
 " My more than father, speak ! What is thy thought ? 
 
 What dost thou see in me to fix thine eyes 
 
 So searchingly upon me ? " And the Jew, 
 
 As if awakening from a reverie, 
 
 Drew his right hand across his brow and said -* 
 
 " My child, my Hadas , thou art very fair ; 
 
 Thy form is straight and supple, and thy face 
 
 Hath that about it, that, once looked upon, 
 
 Makes the beholder long to look again, 
 
 To study, it may be, what subtle something 
 
 Maketh its rare attraction. Even so, 
 
 I, who have raised thee, child, and know thee well 
 
 Most from thy infancy, have felt this truth, 
 
 Yet ne er before so strongly as but now, 
 
 When thou didst speak to me. Before, it seemed 
 
 As doth the dawn stealing upon the earth, 
 
 Faintly, at first, but with increasing light 
 
 Dissolving in itself the ling ring shadows ; 
 
 But now t is as the mid-day s harvest glory 
 
 In ripe fruition. Not thy shapely neck 
 
 Bearing so gracefully thy queenly head ; 
 
 Not thy well-rounded chin and blooming cheeks ; 
 
 Not thy arched nose with its proud curving nostrils ; 
 
 Not thy dark mournful eyes that look from neath 
 
 The arches which support thy lofty brow 
 
 With such a light of truth and tenderness ; 
 
74 VASHTI. 
 
 Not thy black silken locks, thy present crown ;- 
 
 Not any one of these have moved me thus, 
 
 Nor all together ; tho these were enough, 
 
 Within themselves, to move all others so. 
 
 But I see in thy face the trust of Hagar, 
 
 The kindness of Rebecca at the well, 
 
 The faith of Miriam, the love of Ruth, 
 
 Rispah s devotion, and Naomi s care, 
 
 Each having for its object, Israel 
 
 Israel oppressed, down-trodden, and despised 
 
 (Bearing the railings of vindictive men), 
 
 Israel dispersed, and stripped of temp ral pow r 
 
 (Bearing the judgments of an angered God). 
 
 O daughter mine ! I see in thee the glory 
 
 Of all the womanhood of all our race 
 
 Linked with our manhood s hope for Israel ! 
 
 Nay, think me not a flatterer, or crazed, 
 
 But hearken further : 
 
 " In a fortnight s time 
 Will the king s couriers override the land 
 To gather to the palace of the king 
 The fairest of the maidens of the empire 
 To go before the King, as t is decreed ; 
 So that the one who best shall please the King 
 Shall be his queen, the queen of all this realm, 
 
HAD ASS AH AttD MORDECA1. ? 
 
 Even as Vashti was that is deposed : 
 Now I believe me that in all the realm 
 There s not a fairer maiden than art thou, 
 But thou rt a Jewess, and if this were known 
 T would bar thee from this contest for a crown 
 As if thou wert an outcast. Yet my soul 
 Hath a fixed, purposed faith, and sure belief, 
 That queen thou mayest be^ if queen thou wilt, 
 So hear with patience : 
 
 " Thou art little known 
 Outside this village, thou hast never been 
 About the palace since I at the court 
 Have been one of the keepers at the gate, 
 Nor ever been at Shushan, unless veiled 
 After the custom that these shamefaced Gentiles 
 Have taught their women. Now, our long-time friend 
 Rohaman-Ismail, the apostate Jew, 
 Hath grown rich in the land, and prospered well. 
 He hath two daughters, younger each than thou, 
 And but the other day did send me word 
 To let thee come to them at Ecbatana 
 Whither they now do dwell and bide with them 
 Awhile, for thy own pleasure and their good, 
 The while he doth intend to Araby 
 To make a venture with his caravan 
 
76 VASHTI. 
 
 With various merchandise promising profit, 
 And it would please me well if thou wouldst go. 
 
 " Mount our best dromedary, take our Hamish 
 A servant ever faithful and discreet 
 Close veil thy face, if any be near by, 
 Take thy best wardrobe with thee, and thy lute, 
 And journey forthwith to Ecbatana 
 Starting upon the morrow ; and when there, 
 Stay at our friend s as he invited thee. 
 At no time make it known that thou rt a Jewess 
 (Thou may st be sure our friends will never do so), 
 But do thou as our friends do, mention not 
 Thy home or kindred ; wear thy best attire 
 And as thou always dost a winning smile ; 
 Be merry, use thy lute and thy sweet voice 
 As best thou mayest. Further, as their guest, 
 Seem gracious, yet not humble, to our friends, 
 And to their friends, whom thou may st chance to meet. 
 
 Sing, rather than converse, to entertain, 
 
 For speech hath e er more tell-tale lips than song. 
 
 Observe these things and ere three moons shall pass 
 
 Thou shalt be summoned to the palace Shushan 
 
 A candidate for Persia s queenly crown : 
 
 Wilt go as I would have thee ? " 
 
&ADASSA& AND MORDECAL 77 
 
 Hadassah, 
 
 Regarding Mordecai with surprise 
 Mingled with doubt and fear, answered him thus : 
 " My kinsman and my father, save in name, 
 Thy wish, as thy command hath been till now 
 And so still must be, if thy truthful wish, 
 My guide in action ; yet doth thy strange words 
 Seem like the small enkindling of a flame 
 That may consume us both. Never before 
 Have I heard flattery escape thy lips 
 To any person, and much less to me 
 Whom thou hast warned against all flattering speech 
 As gainst contagion. Always, until now, 
 Hast thou advised me gainst the sinful folly 
 Thou called st * the world s ambition and the pride 
 Of earthly riches, and the lust of pow r ; 
 Always till now hast thou instructed me 
 To shun these heathen Persians and these Medes 
 Whom it hath been our fate to dwell amongst ; 
 While an apostate from the Jewish faith 
 Hath seemed the special horror of thy soul ; 
 And now, what sayest thou ? Thy ardent words 
 Spoken in praise of what thou callest my beauty, 
 Had, from another s lips, earned thy rebuke 
 As idle folly. In my maiden ear 
 Thou pourest now the dulcet, burning music 
 
78 VASHTI. 
 
 Of an ambition wilder than the dreams 
 
 Of youth s enchanted slumbers. Whom I ve shunned, 
 
 As thou hast wished and I was pleased to shun 
 
 Thou now wouldst have me seek, and in disguise 
 
 Unworthily scheme to be one of them 
 
 One of the very chiefest of them all ; 
 
 And by so doing to disown myself, 
 
 Deny my people and deny my God, 
 
 Earn for myself the curse of Israel, 
 
 And failing (as I doubt not I should fail), 
 
 The scoffs and jeers of these unholy Gentiles, 
 
 My own reproach, thy unavailing pity, 
 
 And the world s instance of aspiring folly 
 
 Justly rebuked. 
 
 " Is t truly then thy wish 
 That I shall dwell in an apostate s house 
 (Albeit I know this one hath that about him 
 Which doth hold captive thy reluctant friendship), 
 And from this vantage-ground, with base deceit 
 Practise the pretty wiles of which thou speakest 
 That I might thus attract the dull attention 
 Of the king s pandering slaves, and so be chosen, 
 Not as the chance might fall, but, through intrigue ? 
 My own intrigue, and thy intrigue ; for what ? 
 For the one chance a chance among the thousands, 
 
HADASSAH AND MORDECAI. 79 
 
 To air my charms before this haughty King 
 To surely play the harlot, with the hope, 
 Thereby to win approval and a crown, 
 And lose my self-respect scarcely the less 
 Whether I win a crown or lose mine honor ; 
 To win a husband, should I win at all, 
 Who is too great and terrible to love 
 Too powerful and rash to reason with, 
 And therefore would exact the toll of love, 
 Lip service and a reverential mien, 
 Even where love was not ; and his anger roused 
 My life might scarce assuage it, and my fate 
 Be even sadder than the banished Vashti s. 
 What say st thou ? is t thy wish that I shall go ? " 
 
 Then Mordecai thus : 
 
 " Cousin, thy words 
 
 Are searching as the thrust of warrior s spear, 
 And keen as wintry winds to the unclad. 
 That they have weight, as well as worldly wisdom, 
 I 11 not dispute. That thou hast strength and courage 
 To hold to light my seeming inconsistence, 
 Argues thee well, and calls for no rebuke. 
 Thy gentle spirit, that I ne er before 
 Have seen moved to such depths of eloquence, 
 Shews a new charm of undiscovered power, 
 
8o VASHTL 
 
 Which, conscious of itself, in sweet reluctance 
 Offers to sacrifice its own convictions 
 And do my wish in strict obedience 
 E en to self-seeming ruin : This the more 
 Doth fix the deep conviction of my soul, 
 That queen thou oughtest be, and so thou must ; 
 For as my soul doth live, but yesternight 
 I dreamed of thee (and I do seldom dream). 
 I dreamed that all the court and palace Shushan 
 Was gay with banners and illumed with lamps ; 
 That a great throng was gathered in the court 
 And in the midst of them, in shining robes, 
 Upon a golden throne, beside the king s, 
 Raised on a marble dais, thou wert seated, 
 When lo, the King himself, even Ahasuerus, 
 Stepped close beside thee bearing in his hands 
 A triple golden zone, studded with gems, 
 Which he himself did place upon thy head 
 And called the throng to view thy coronation 
 And give it witness. Then in loud acclaim 
 Tumultuous, the raptured throng burst forth 
 Till the court seemed to quiver with the power 
 Of their glad-voiced hosannahs ; and the King, 
 Taking thee by the hand, bade thee arise, 
 And there proclaimed thee Queen, and named thee 
 * Esther. 
 
HAD ASS AH AND MORDECAI. 8 1 
 
 And when I heard the name I cried aloud 
 Unto the God of glory, as it seemed : 
 
 * This surely is the token ! this the star 
 Risen once more to beacon Judah on 
 In light and safety ! 
 
 " Hadas ! cousin ! 
 My vision is upon me like a spell, 
 And will not be ignored or put aside, 
 But in mine ears that multitudinous voice 
 Is ringing still with shouts of Long live Esther ! 
 1 Esther the beautiful ; our honored queen ! 
 
 * Fair Star of Persia, live, live on forever ! 
 And in all this I find a hope for Jewry, 
 
 For wert thou but the queen, our smitten race 
 Had then a faithful friend near to the throne 
 Whose sweet persuasion and discerning wit 
 Might stand between us and the machinations 
 Of our fierce enemies, who in their hate 
 Should seek the sanction of the hasty King 
 To our undoing. I have weighed thy scruples, 
 And in the scale of ordinary things 
 Naught can be placed to keep the beam in poise ; 
 But that I hope, is not for thee alone, 
 And surely not for me, but for our people 
 Not for our glory, but for Israel s good 
 
82 
 
 And for the glory of the great Jehovah. 
 Thy scruples are of evil, but the soul 
 Which looks beyond the act to the result, 
 And that result be the great good of many, 
 Whereas, the act effects that soul alone 
 And be not gloried in, or undertaken 
 Save for the good that is to come of it, 
 Where is the evil ? Surely there is none ! 
 For so, the act, the soul reluctantly 
 Weaves in the master purpose, which is good. 
 Further, my Hadas , this thing only, further : 
 In this great opportunity I see 
 The hand of the Almighty stretching forth 
 To touch, once more, the wounds of Israel 
 With healing pity." 
 
 " Cousin, t is enough ! 
 
 I will not question more ! " Hadassah cried, 
 " Forgive thou my presumption and my doubts, 
 For surely now I know this is thy wish, 
 And that alone, for me, were all-sufficient, 
 But if it be God s will, as thou believest, 
 It would be impious to hesitate, 
 And so I will set forth at early morn 
 For Ecbatana, even as thou sayest 
 To do and act in all things." 
 
HADASSAH AND MORDECAI. 83 
 
 " T is well said. 
 
 My child, my faithful Hadas , " cried the Jew ; 
 " And may God speed the coming of thy glory, 
 Than which, as I beheld it in my dream, 
 None shall be greater throughout all the earth 
 Among all women." 
 
 Long before the dawn, 
 
 While yet the stars shone from a moonless sky 
 Upon the silent, fertile Susian plains, 
 Pursuing for a time their northward course 
 Along the western bank of the Chaospes, 
 O er the brown, dusty, trampled thoroughfare, 
 Hadassah and the grave, gray-bearded Hamish ? 
 Each mounted on a tall, swift-footed camel, 
 Rode thoughtfully along. Another beast, 
 That bore light camp equipage and provision, 
 Followed behind, led by a leathern thong 
 Which the old servant held within his hand 
 Or fastened to his girdle. Thus began 
 That wondrous journey to Ecbatana, 
 Whose whole effect not Mordecai dreamed 
 Or mortal man conjectured. Little spake, 
 These early travelers in the star-lit silence, 
 For all about them seemed so filled with awe 
 So wrapt in the still majesty of night, 
 
84 VASHTI. 
 
 That speech fell on their ears like the intrusion 
 
 Of jarring sounds, in that vast harmony 
 
 Of overarching sky and sleeping plain 
 
 And low-breathed murmurs of a dreaming world. 
 
 At length the first signs of approaching day 
 Crept up the eastern sky, and grew in strength, 
 Until the bright rays of the coming sun 
 Ribbed half the heavens with light. Then there ap 
 peared 
 
 Close to a little thicket by the way, 
 A lion, crouching as if he would spring 
 Upon the maiden and her gray-beard escort, 
 Yet sprang not ; but arising to his height 
 With flaming eyes looked in Hadassah s face, 
 And, lashing, with his tail, his tawny sides, 
 Ope d his fanged jaws and from his ruddy throat 
 Poured a triumphant roar that set the air 
 A-tremble o er the plain ; then turning fled 
 Even to ard Shushan. Hamish, white with fear, 
 Spake not, altho his lips essayed to speak, 
 And their affrighted beasts at ev ry joint 
 Quaked in dumb terror. Hadassah, 
 For some strange cause she could not understand, 
 Felt naught of trepidation or alarm, 
 But, turning in her houdah, watched the lion 
 
HADASSAH AND MORDECAI. 85 
 
 Leaping in rapid flight, and then she saw 
 
 The distant peaks aflame with filmy gold, 
 
 And then the sunshine from those glowing summits 
 
 Slipt down to eastward on the arid plain 
 
 Sweeping toward them, till great Shushan s towers 
 
 Now left behind were bathed in its warm lustre. 
 
 Then turning unto Hamish, Hadas spake : 
 
 " Be not afraid ! The lion has gone hence ! 
 T was strange that he should lie in wait for us 
 And thus confront us with his savage presence, 
 Pour out the thunders of his awful voice, 
 Yet flee and harm us not. T was also strange 
 He should be here at all. No lion else, 
 As I believe, hath been for many years 
 North far as Shushan. As my soul doth live, 
 And as my eyes behold this wondrous morn 
 The fairest that I ever looked upon, 
 There is a potent augury in this 
 That bodes us well ; for out of Egypt came, 
 Before the Bondage, and from Israel s lips, 
 As on his couch he sate delaying death 
 To speak his parting charge unto his sons 
 His dying blessing and his prophecy 
 Words full of hope for Judah. Lo, he fixed, 
 As thou rememb rest to have seen it writ, 
 
86 VASHTI. 
 
 A couchant lion as our tribal emblem, 
 And asketh WHO SHALL ROUSE HIM ? " 
 
 " O, my God ! 
 
 Hath this, then, portent of deliverance ? 
 Have I aroused the Lion of our Tribe 
 Thus in the semblance of a savage beast 
 Unto my people s betterment, or safety ? 
 So may it prove ! At least I go content 
 On this strange journey I am set upon 
 With hope aroused and with a pray rful heart, 
 Fearing no evil." 
 
 So they journeyed on 
 
 These two, for the most part in speechless silence 
 Plodding day after day the weary road, 
 Halting at eve to feed their tired beasts 
 And to refresh themselves ; the evening meal 
 Prepared there by the wayside, and partaken, 
 The faithful Hamish pitched the tiny tent, 
 And, when the maid withdrew therein and slept, 
 Lay down without the door, wrapt in his robes, 
 To guard his mistress, gaze up at the stars, 
 And the dim, silent summits of the Zagros, 
 And muse on the strange fortunes of his race, 
 Till weariness and safety bade him sleep. 
 
HADASSAH AND MORDECAI. 87 
 
 And so day followed day, and oft they met 
 
 Upon the way some Median caravan 
 
 Bearing rich stores of grain, and spicery, 
 
 Peltries, and products of the Median looms, 
 
 Down to the great King s capitol for sale. 
 
 The drivers and the merchants looked surprised 
 
 At the veiled maiden and her aged attendant. 
 
 But these delayed not, nor asked any question, 
 
 Nor were they questioned. Surely these they passed 
 
 Knew not that Persia s queen, so soon to be, 
 
 Had ridden by them. After twenty days 
 
 The travellers had reached the grassy flank 
 
 Of Mount Orontes, and the battlements 
 
 Of Ecbatana s tower came into view, 
 
 And soon the whole great city was around them, 
 
 With its strange sights, its many cooling fountains, 
 
 And rich, luxuriant gardens all abloom 
 
 With roses of a hundred various tints 
 
 Shedding sweet perfumes. Mordecai s friends 
 
 Received the maiden joyfully among them, 
 
 Whence she was soon sought out for her great beauty 
 
 And taken down to Shushan, where in time, 
 
 Even as Mordecai saw it in his dream, 
 
 She was made queen ; and all the court was wild 
 
 With much rejoicing ; and the feast was spread ; 
 
 Queen Esther s name was upon ev ry lip ; 
 
88 VASHTI. 
 
 And all the empire echoed with the praise 
 Of her great charms ; for surely she was fair, 
 And she was queen ; the King s own fav rite star ; 
 And no one spake of Vashti any more, 
 For Vashti was as one long dead, to those 
 Who fawned upon the King. But the new queen 
 Disclosed not yet her race, and few indeed 
 Surmised that Israel shared Iran s throne. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 HAMAN S DECREE THE MOURNING. 
 
 DIGTHAN, and Teresh brethren of Mehuman 
 
 *-* Whose sight had been destroyed and whose tongue 
 
 silenced 
 
 By the command of the revengeful King 
 For daring to present Vashti s appeal 
 In pond ring on their kinsman s deadly wrongs 
 Conspired to slay the King, and thus avenge 
 Their brother s cruel maims ; and noting not 
 The seeming listless Jew who sate betimes 
 In the King s gate outside the door they guarded, 
 They dropt, now and again, a word whose meaning 
 Was thought to be unreadable, except 
 By application of the awful key 
 Possessed by them alone. But as he sate 
 With gaze intent upon the marble pave, 
 The keen wits of the Jew were gath ring up 
 A stray word here, a broken sentence there, 
 And fitting these together in his mind, 
 
 89 
 
90 VASHTI. 
 
 Supplying now a thought, and then a query 
 Connected with the gossip of the court 
 And his own knowledge of some past events, 
 Their daring plot was opened to his view, 
 And he did presently divulge the same. 
 Seizure and sentence followed ; and the twain, 
 Seeking revenge for a brave brother s wrongs, 
 Found only for themselves death on the gallows. 
 Then was it entered in the chronicles 
 How Mordecai had preserved the empire, 
 In that he had preserved the mighty King, 
 Its front and centre. But the matter passed ; 
 And Haman, a designing Agagite, 
 A long time in great favor with the King, 
 Press d for still further favor and more pow r, 
 And not in vain, till, save the King himself, 
 Not any was above him. When he passed 
 Heads were uncovered, and the suppliant knee 
 Bended at his approach. All did him honor ; 
 All save one the Jew, and he ignored 
 Not only the pretensions, but the presence 
 Of the exalted one ; who in his turn 
 Conceived so fierce a hatred of the Jew 
 That his extinction could not well appease, 
 And the annihilation of his race 
 Throughout the realm, alone might satisfy. 
 
HAMAN S DECREE THE MOURNING. 9! 
 
 So Haman sought the King, and craftily 
 
 Charged Jewry with a lack of loyalty, 
 
 Dis bedience to the laws, and covert treason ; 
 
 And as a measure for the King s own safety, 
 
 And the well-being of the mighty realm, 
 
 Urged ev ry Hebrew s death ; off ring himself 
 
 To pay much money in the treasury 
 
 To prove his zeal was for the nation s good 
 
 And not for his own ends. The King, alarmed, 
 
 And acting rashly, as it was his wont, 
 
 Persuaded by the favorite s calumnies 
 
 So cunningly paraded as the truth, 
 
 Granted the tenor of his cruel prayer 
 
 And caused it to be written in the law 
 
 As verity, and made unchangeable, 
 
 And gave his ring to seal it, and the doom 
 
 Of Israel ; for therein t was decreed : 
 
 " That, on the thirteenth day of the month Adar, 
 The power of this realm, hereby invoked, 
 Shall, throughout all our many provinces, 
 By all our satraps and our tribute kings 
 (Who, for the perfect carrying out whereof 
 As herein made of record and decreed, 
 Are held to strict accountability) 
 Directing the armed forces of our realm, 
 
92 VASHTI. 
 
 And all the populace available, 
 Within their sev ral satrapies and states, 
 Visit sure death upon the hated Jews, 
 Pernicious in themselves, and full of menace 
 To the realm s safety. Women, children, men, 
 Aged and young alike, let none be spared ; 
 So that our realm be safely rid of them 
 Then and forever ; and, moreover, this : 
 That of all Hebrews slain their goods shall be 
 A prey to their destroyers." 
 
 This, so writ 
 
 Was formally attested, duly sealed, 
 And ordered published throughout all the realm, 
 After the manner of all Persian laws, 
 In all the provinces, to all the rulers 
 To be proclaimed by them to all the people ; 
 And Mordecai, when he heard of it, 
 Was bowed with grief, and clamorous with despair, 
 And, rending all his garments, then threw dust 
 Upon his head, and went about the streets 
 Troubling the day and night with bitter wail 
 And lamentation. 
 
 " O Jerusalem ! " 
 
 He cried, " rearing thy glorious head once more 
 From thine own ruins, now may st thou behold 
 
HA MAN S DECREE THE MOURNING. 93 
 
 The more than ruin of thy smitten people, 
 
 Their legalized destruction ! Let thy walls, 
 
 Thy holy temple, and thy goodly towers, 
 
 So lately resurrected, sink again, 
 
 And seek oblivion in the dust of earth 
 
 That soon shall hide the last of all thy builders ! 
 
 Thus may our race, and thou, our well-beloved, 
 
 Perish together ! Woe, O Israel, 
 
 Woe is thy portion ! The Egyptian s yoke, 
 
 The wanderers sufferings in the wilderness, 
 
 Assyria s cruel tasks, Babylon s gibes 
 
 Through generations of captivity, 
 
 Have stained with grief the pages of thy script, 
 
 And now this Persian terror seals the book 
 
 And binds the volume of thy sorrows all 
 
 In death s completion ! Weep, ye Jewish maids ! 
 
 And mourn, as Jephtha s daughter wept and mourned, 
 
 For the warm love that leaps in all your veins 
 
 Must die ungathered, even as did hers, 
 
 And that without availment ! Cry ye out, 
 
 Mothers of Israel, for your babes must die, 
 
 First-born and last ! but this last Pharaoh 
 
 Decrees that ye die with them, so your grief 
 
 Shall not be of long life ! Lo, Judah, now, 
 
 Behold the open graves digged for thy people 
 
 And them be dumb forever ! Is this all ? 
 
94 VASHTI. 
 
 Why did I hope for Israel any more ? 
 
 O God, why did I dream those wondrous dreams 
 
 That have been honored like true prophecy 
 
 In their fulfilment, and then live to see, 
 
 This day, the crumbling down in bitterness 
 
 Of more than all I hoped for ! " 
 
 As he called 
 
 His lamentations thus, pacing the pave 
 Before the palace gate, tattered and grimed, 
 The eunuch Hatach, bearing in his hands 
 A parcel, came and spake unto him thus : 
 " Sir, the queen hath heard of thy condition 
 And of thy bitter wailings, and the knowledge 
 That thou didst on a time befriend the King 
 Moved her compassion, and so she hath sent 
 This raiment for thee, that thou may st be clad 
 As doth befit thee ; and she further quireth 
 The cause of thy lamenting. Don this garb, 
 And then relate to me thy heavy sorrow 
 That I may speak it to her, and mayhap 
 She can befriend thee in such way as shall 
 In measure stay thy grief." 
 
 Then Hatach held 
 
 Toward the Jew the raiment he had brought, 
 But Mordecai put it from him, saying : 
 
HAMAN S DECREE THE MOURNING. 95 
 
 " Take it away ! What need have I of raiment 
 
 Except to rend it ? Why should I be clothed 
 
 Except in sackcloth ? Naked to the world, 
 
 As Job cried out of old, I came ! And now, 
 
 I and my people must, by law, be stript, 
 
 And given o er to death in nakedness; 
 
 For which a price is paid in privilege ! 
 
 These, sorrow s tatters, that now cling to me, 
 
 Indifferently serve to hide my shame, 
 
 That is enough ! And if the queen would know 
 
 Why I do mourn, then bear thou this to her ! " 
 
 Saying which the Jew handed the wond ring Hatach 
 
 A written scroll and copy of the law 
 
 So late decreed against the Jews, and added : 
 
 " Tell her to read it and consider well 
 
 If I have cause for sorrow ! Further, 
 
 Tell her the time is come that she must act ! 
 
 She must declare herself, and sue the King 
 
 For mercy to our people ! " 
 
 Wond ring that 
 
 The Jew should hazard such a speech as this 
 For message to the queen, Hatach returned 
 And gave the queen the scroll and verbal message, 
 Which when she had perused and listened to, 
 She seemed amazed and troubled beyond measure. 
 
96 VASHTI. 
 
 The color fled her cheeks, leaving her face 
 White as the alabaster statue, by her side, 
 Of a winged griffin, which she caught upon 
 To save herself from falling. Then she turned 
 As if to hide her face from the dazed eunuch 
 Until her young heart drove the truant blood 
 Back to its place with fluttering little throbs. 
 But she exclaimed not, tho it seemed to her 
 As if the hopes which she had builded up 
 Lay at her feet in ruins, and the fears 
 And doubts she first had felt arose again 
 In the deep shadow of this pending doom 
 That threatened Israel. Yet she stilled her dread 
 And tried to think what word she must return 
 Back to the Jew, for tho no hope appeared 
 In Mordecai s hint as to her duty, 
 She did not wholly yield up to despair. 
 Still, knowing not what else to say to him, 
 And seeing the immediate demand 
 For answer in some sort unto the Jew, 
 She spake to Hatach thus : 
 
 " Tell thou the Jew 
 
 That I compassion with him and his people, 
 And fain would do some act to succor them, 
 Yet know the law is such, that to approach 
 
HA MAN S DECREE THE MOURNING. 97 
 
 The august presence of the mighty King 
 Within the inner court where he is found, 
 Unless so bidden by the King himself, 
 Whether t be woman or man that venture it, 
 Death is the forfeit, save, indeed, to such 
 As it may please the King that he extend 
 To ard them the golden sceptre, saying Live ! 
 These thirty days hath not the King beheld 
 My face or sent to bid me come to him ! 
 What might I then expect, to go unbidden 
 Into his presence, and on such an errand ? " 
 
 And so did Hatach speak those, the queen s words, 
 As bidden, to the Jew, who this returned 
 In answer unto Esther : " Now thou rt queen 
 Wilt thou prove false and recreant to thy race 
 In this the hour of their supremest peril ? 
 Think not to scape with life in the King s house, 
 If Israel die, more than the meanest slave 
 Whose veins course with the blood of Abraham ! 
 And if deliverance come, as may God grant, 
 And thou makest no attempt to forward it, 
 Destruction then may seize thy father s house, 
 And on anothers head the crown of glory 
 Rest, that I fain would think is only thine ; 
 And, as I must believe, thou hast been sent 
 
98 VASHTI. 
 
 To be a queen for such a strait as this, 
 
 Let not the time escape thee ! Dost thou fear ? 
 
 Surely thou hast great cause ! but will t be lessened 
 
 By waiting death that must engulf us all, 
 
 Making no effort, quietly submitting 
 
 To perish with the Jewish multitude 
 
 And fill a nameless grave ? No ! rather dare 
 
 To die, if die thou must, pleading for life 
 
 For all of Israel ; then were thy life 
 
 An offering on the altar of thy race, 
 
 And so thy death (which may our God forbid ! ) 
 
 A spectacle to move th offended world, 
 
 Making thy name and fame less sacred only 
 
 Than if thou shalt succeed in this great cause, 
 
 And save thy suff ring people and thyself 
 
 To the Almighty s glory ! " 
 
 Hatach, so 
 
 Told Mordecai s message to the queen 
 Which when she d heard, she sent thro him again 
 This writing to the Jew : " I am resolved ! 
 Gather our people up throughout the city, 
 And bid them all for me, and in my name, 
 Give quittance from all toil, and mourn with me, 
 And fast, and pray, for three full days and nights, 
 Eating, or drinking, not ; and thinking only 
 
HAMAWS DECREE THE MOURNING. 99 
 
 Of our great peril and Jehovah s power : 
 The same will also I, and all my maids, 
 And when this time is done, I will proceed 
 Unbidden to the King, which is unlawful, 
 And, if I lose my life, then be it so ; 
 If not I have my plans to intercede 
 For Israel, according as I may." 
 
 So did Jew Mordecai, with his people, 
 
 As bidden by the queen ; and Israel mourned, 
 
 And mourning wept, and weeping cried aloud, 
 
 And wailed her songs of sorrow to the winds, 
 
 And rent her garments, took no food or drink, 
 
 But dwelt in desolation, praying much 
 
 And fearing greatly, for the world was dark. 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 LITTLE META. 
 
 hither, little maid, and sit thee here 
 On this poor mat beside me, whiles I try 
 To tell the thing which thou inquirest of 
 According to the truth. Say whom thou art ? 
 Poor child ! There was a time when these four words 
 In thy plain query, now so simply put, 
 Had found me readier to answer them, 
 Or, if I hesitated, it had been 
 For other reasons than oppress me now ; 
 And yet it is a thing that oftentimes 
 In these near half-score years I ve asked myself, 
 And have not found the words to answer me 
 From lack of knowledge or from fear of truth 
 As seems unto me right. 
 
 " But this I am, 
 
 A homeless creature, even like thyself, 
 And one who loves thee dearly, little maid, 
 
 100 
 
LITTLE META. 101 
 
 And owes thee much, and prizes thee yet more, 
 As the one object that my hungry heart 
 Hath left to feed its famished love upon 
 Beholding with mine eyes. 
 
 " Blessed be the day 
 
 I found thee shivering at the evening s close 
 Upon the wind-swept street, and heard thy sobs 
 Breaking convulsively, as thou didst call 
 Mother ! O mother ! ever and anon, 
 Whilst weakly tugging at the prostrate form 
 Of her whose name thou spake, who answered not ; 
 For death had called her ; and I being veiled 
 And knowing only of thy great distress 
 And being so unknown to those who came 
 To carry off thy dead, persuaded thee 
 To come away with me ; for well I knew 
 That friendlessness and poverty were thine, 
 And being peers in these, I d harm thee not 
 By offering my love ; tho, when so doing, 
 I felt I should be doubly well repaid 
 Even in the like I should receive from thee, 
 And it hath been so. 
 
 " So I am thy friend, 
 And this poor hovel that doth shelter us, 
 This is our home a sorry home at best 
 And yet t is only ours by sufferance. 
 
IO2 VASHTI. 
 
 " Three years agone, while shivering with cold 
 And pinched with hunger, I intruded here, 
 Finding this shelter vacant, and apart 
 From where much people frequent or pass by 
 And in the Hebrew quarter of the town 
 Where Medes or Persians dwell not ; so I came, 
 And none has spoken to, or questioned me 
 Of my possession ; nor, until thou earnest, 
 Did any soul look in on me, to know 
 Whether I lived or died ; but oft I found, 
 Placed near the door without, small store of food 
 Left in the moonless night, by whom, I know not, 
 But I surmise, by some kind-hearted Jew 
 Who thought me poor and needy, not amiss, 
 Yet dared not do a deed of chanty, 
 To such as he suspected me to be, 
 Save under cover of the silent night 
 When none might see it. 
 
 "So is charity 
 
 Afraid before my face to show herself, 
 But now, thanks be to thee, my little friend, 
 These pretty trinkets, that my hands hath learned 
 To fashion from the grasses, palms, and flowers, 
 Hath found a market, through thy diligence, 
 Among the rich where thou dost carry them 
 To sell and buy us bread. 
 
LITTLE MET A. 1 03 
 
 " I am thy charge, 
 
 Thou seest, little maid, well as thy friend, 
 And one who seeks the place within thy heart, 
 Of the lost mother I have told thee of 
 Who cannot come to thee." 
 
 " O, my mistress ! 
 
 Mother thou art, and hast been, unto me, 
 In many, many ways ! " the child replied, 
 " For thou dost love me, yes, I know it well, 
 And thou hast been so very kind to me, 
 Speaking so sweetly aye, and aye so gently, 
 So like the singing of the nightingale 
 For pitying tenderness ; and thou rt so good, 
 And thou rt so very fair, so different 
 In all things from all people I have known 
 That I do often wonder It seems strange 
 That thou shouldst care for a poor beggar s child 
 Found friendless in the streets : for, O my mistress ! 
 Thou wert not always poor and in distress ! 
 Thy sweetness must have grown among the flowers, 
 Thy voice developed mong the songs of birds 
 And thy kind heart fed long on tenderness 
 Hedging thee all around ; and so, forgive me ! 
 Before I thought, the words that were within me 
 Leaped to my lips which oped to utter them 
 In the unseemly question I have asked " 
 
104 VASHTI. 
 
 " Hark ! what is that ! " 
 
 T was Vashti who exclaimed ; 
 And both were mute ; and listening, they heard 
 The deep, slow-measured voice, wondrous in power, 
 And richness, and unutterable pathos, 
 Of one who seemed to speak mid a great throng 
 Voicing the prayer of the multitude 
 Which crouched, or knelt about him with fixed eyes 
 Centred upon him, as he stood among them, 
 Each hearing his own thoughts finding expression 
 In that one central, swelling orison 
 Which now came sounding through the brooding 
 
 night 
 
 With such distinctness, such impressiveness, 
 And searching cadence, that the very stars 
 Did seem to listen, as the voice concluded : 
 
 " But yet is hope within us ! for, our God, 
 
 Thy promise to the seed of Abraham, 
 
 And unto Israel in his closing hours, 
 
 And much that Thou hast done for this, thy people, 
 
 Bids us not yet to think that all is lost, 
 
 But fast and pray, and cry aloud for help 
 
 To Thee, Jehovah, whence aid only cometh 
 
 And timely succor. Help us now, O God, 
 
 And strengthen Thou the queen, even Queen Esther 
 
LITTLE MET A. 10$ 
 
 The beautiful and good, in her great suit 
 
 And perilous plea for our deliverance 
 
 Before Ahasuerus, by whose law, 
 
 Procured by Haman for our overthrow, 
 
 We are condemned to slaughter. Thou, O God, 
 
 Knowest the hatred of our enemies, 
 
 And seest Thy people bowed with heavy grief, 
 
 And hearest their lamentations, and their prayers, 
 
 Pleading Thy mercy, and Thy intercession, 
 
 In this, the time of their most deadly peril. 
 
 And shall all Jewry be exterminate ? 
 
 Shall Israel and Judah be cut off 
 
 So that the earth shall know no more of them ? 
 
 And by a people who avow Thee not 
 
 Nor bend the knee unto Thee ? Woe is me ! 
 
 And woe to all Thy people everywhere 
 
 Unless Thou aid us ! Lo, the days are sad, 
 
 Yea, and the nights are troubled with the cries 
 
 Of children, the low wailings of our women, 
 
 The shouts and moanings of distracted men 
 
 In garments rent, and strewn with dust and ashes 
 
 Mourning for Israel s doom. Turn it aside, 
 
 O God ! Let us not perish in Thy sight 
 
 Like beasts brought to the slaughter ! Save us, 
 
 Lord! 
 Save or we die ! " 
 
106 VASHTI. 
 
 Then as the prayer ceased 
 The multitude did lift their voices up 
 In a weird, suppliant chant, intoning all 
 The notes of grief and music of despair 
 In their impassioned words, while here and there 
 A tone of triumph, bursting from some soul 
 Fired with abiding faith in the Almighty, 
 Rang out above the rest, in strength and joyance 
 Temp ring the doleful voices all around 
 With something of the leaven of bright hope, 
 While thus all chanted : 
 
 SONG OF THE MULTITUDE. 
 
 " God of our fathers, hear our pray r ! 
 O Abraham, thou intercede ! 
 Isaac, let thy great spirit lead 
 Our thoughts to God in our despair ! 
 Plead for us, Jacob ! fathers, plead ! 
 God of the Hebrews, raise Thy hand 
 Or else we perish from the land ! 
 
 " Jehovah, God, Oh, we have sinned, 
 And we have suffered much, and long, 
 And suffering now we pour our song 
 Of sorrow on the passing wind. 
 
LITTLE META. IO/ 
 
 O God, protect us ! Thou art strong 
 And we are weak ! reach forth Thy hand 
 Or else we perish from the land. 
 
 " Thou sentest Joseph, bondman, led 
 Down into Egypt to be kept 
 Till Canaan s Land was famine-swept, 
 When Israel s remnant, following, fed 
 On surplus he had stored when reapt 
 As Thou hadst ordered. So Thy hand 
 Preserved them in the stranger s land. 
 
 " And when down-trod in servitude, 
 And writhing under Mizraim s heel 
 They felt the bitterness those feel 
 Who toil for bondmen s dole of food, 
 Then didst Thou answer their appeal ; 
 And Moses, as Thou raised st Thy hand, 
 Did lead them from that heathen land. 
 
 " When Sennacherib s Assyrian host 
 A countless horde in armed might 
 With threat ning power invested quite 
 The walls round Zion, with proud boast 
 To level them, and put to flight 
 Thy people, lo ! Thy potent hand 
 Did smite the boasters in our land. 
 
108 VASHTI. 
 
 " O God, Thou knowest now the fate 
 Decreed against us ; the keen sword 
 Is whetted for our blood, O Lord ; 
 Our enemies are strong ; their hate 
 Is fierce and bitter as the word 
 Of foiled Abaddon ; raise Thy hand, 
 Lord, else we perish from the land." 
 
 The chanting ceased, and a low moaning plaint 
 Fervid, but indistinct, yet fraught with sorrow, 
 Came to their listening ears, and turning then 
 The woman spake unto the child and thus. : 
 
 " What meaneth this ? Some mighty trouble hangs 
 
 Over this people surely, or their souls 
 
 Could not give voice to such weird song of woe, 
 
 And supplication for their God s protection 
 
 As we have listened to. Go, little maid ; 
 
 Run but a moment to the aged Jewess 
 
 Who dwells near Gihon s pool, not far away, 
 
 And is bedridden, yet of ready speech 
 
 She whom so often thou hast told me of 
 
 As being kind and confident to thee 
 
 And learn, if learn thou canst, what has befallen 
 
 Her mourning people." 
 
LITTLE META. 109 
 
 Then, without ado, 
 The child departed out into the night 
 On her strange errand, and the woman watched 
 And watching waited, waited till the day 
 Broke in upon the night, nor yet returned 
 The obedient little messenger she d sent 
 To do her bidding ; and her heart was wrung 
 With apprehension, and her self-upbraidings 
 Scaped from her pallid lips incessantly : 
 
 " Why did I send the child forth in the night 
 
 To learn of trouble that I might have guessed 
 
 From what I heard coming from out the darkness ? 
 
 And now t is on the lips of passers-by 
 
 Wailing for Jewry. My poor little Meta, 
 
 Without one word of plaint ; obedient 
 
 In all things, loving, true, and dutiful : 
 
 Never a word s dissent she uttered, though I now 
 
 Remember she looked pale as she went out. 
 
 Poor little heart ! perhaps t was chilled with dread, 
 
 For surely the sad wailing of the people, 
 
 Coming from out the stillness of the night, 
 
 Were full of awfulness and weird concern, 
 
 And specially for one so very young. 
 
 Why did I bid her go ? for now I see 
 
 A thousand then-unthought-of dangers rise 
 
IIO VASHTI. 
 
 To meet my darling. Oh, my troubled heart ! 
 I thought I had lost all t could give thee pain 
 That nothing in the world again could waken 
 Thy pulsings into throbs of agony, 
 But thy wild beating gainst my aching bosom 
 At this poor little waif s returning not 
 Oppresses me almost beyond endurance ! 
 I must go out and seek her." 
 
 So she rose 
 
 And, drawing close a veil about her face, 
 Set out in search of the loved missing one, 
 And to the hovel near to Gihon s pool 
 First turned her steps, and as she went along, 
 On every hand she heard the voice of prayer, 
 The song of lamentation, and the speech 
 Of overhanging doom, and saw the signs 
 Of mourning and deep sorrow. At her house 
 She found the Jewess, shrivelled with. old age, 
 And helpless with a cureless malady, 
 Stretched on her bed of years, and all alone, 
 (Her sole attendant having gone without) 
 Bemoaning weakly with unsteady voice 
 Rising in invocation, falling in wails 
 Prospective death to her and all her people, 
 And weeping bitterly as one in love 
 
LITTLE MET A. in 
 
 With life and joys which she was loth to leave, 
 But when she saw the woman at the door 
 She bade her enter. 
 
 To the simple query 
 
 If she had seen the child the night before 
 The Jewess said she had. " The child," she said, 
 Had " started quickly back unto her mistress 
 After inquiring of the Jewish sorrow, 
 Which it was strange that any should not know." 
 And then she straight detailed, without a halt, 
 The pending fate that threatened Israel 
 And how the queen had promised intervention 
 At her great peril. After hearing this, 
 The woman, bowing low, excused herself, 
 And, passing out, pursued her quest again 
 With heavy heart, the poor old Jewess moans 
 Still sounding in her ears as she went on ; 
 But so it was whithersoe er she went 
 Throughout the Jewish quarter. Mourning, tears, 
 And prayers, and lamentations, riven raiment, 
 And people prostrate wailing in the dust, 
 Were, round her everywhere, and, if she spake 
 To quire about the child, none noticed her, 
 For in the general sorrow few had thought 
 Save of calamity that threatened all. 
 
112 VASHTI. 
 
 And so she found no trace of whom she sought 
 
 All through that long and weary day of sorrow ; 
 
 Then, turning, heart-sick, sought her own poor hovel, 
 
 Half hoping that the lost one might be there, 
 
 Returned before her, but it was not so, 
 
 And she sat down and wept, in her poor shelter, 
 
 And weeping prayed, and praying spake aloud : 
 
 VASHTI S PRAYER. 
 
 " O Sun, that deigns to shine on so much woe, 
 
 Lend not thy light unto it any more ! 
 
 O, Aura-Mazda, in thy plenteous might 
 
 Turn yet aside the torrent of destruction 
 
 Which threatens to o erwhelm this stranger people 
 
 Unwillingly among us ! Lo, it seemeth 
 
 As though the baleful strength of Ahriman 
 
 Would overcome all good. Stay him, All-Wise 
 
 And Bounteous One ! stay the power of Evil 
 
 Fierce Angra Manyus, stalking now abroad 
 
 So full of cruel doing. Stay his hand, 
 
 And save this smitten people ! Many times 
 
 Of late I Ve bowed unto thee, offring pray r 
 
 For my unworthy self ; pleading my woes, 
 
 My disinheritance and fallen state, 
 
 As cause for intercession, to the end 
 
 That thou, at least, teach me obedience 
 
LITTLE META. 113 
 
 And meek submission to thy holy will 
 
 (If so it be that I shall live and suffer) 
 
 And the King s pleasure. Still, although my griefs, 
 
 Lately so many, yet are multiplied, 
 
 My eyes but now are opened, and I see 
 
 That I have thought too much upon myself, 
 
 For, even now, what I alone do grieve 
 
 Is suffered many fold by many thousands 
 
 Unhappier than myself, and with more cause ; 
 
 For, it can not much matter that one soul 
 
 Is tortured in this world or taken from it, 
 
 But when a Race is threatened with extinction, 
 
 A homeless Nation, moaning as one man 
 
 And weeping as one woman, lying prone, 
 
 Calls out for mercy and commiseration, 
 
 It is a spectacle to move the gods, 
 
 And do thou heed it, great Ahura-Mazda ! 
 
 In thy sweet mercy grant this Jewish queen 
 
 This Esther whom, t is said, is beautiful, 
 
 She who is raised whence I have been torn down 
 
 To move the King s compassion, and forbid 
 
 That she too fall beneath his causeless wrath ; 
 
 And of my little maid, Oh, care for her ! 
 
 That evil may not reach her where she is, 
 
 Or near, or far, from me who love her so. 
 
 Grant peace and quiet unto weary souls." 
 
BOOK VI. 
 
 ESTHER. 
 
 LO, now the time was come to make her suit, 
 And Esther, unattended and unbidden, 
 Clad in her royal robes and matchless beauty 
 Appeared before the King in his great hall 
 Seated in state on his imperial throne ; 
 And there she stood a time with downcast eyes 
 Challenging death, till the astonished King, 
 Struck with her beauty and her awful daring, 
 Stretched forth the golden sceptre in his hand 
 Giving her favor ; then bade her approach 
 Saying unto her : 
 
 " Esther, my fair queen, 
 
 What is thy wish ? Fear not to make it known ! 
 It shall be granted thee, even to the half 
 Of this great kingdom which I joy to share 
 With thee, Light of my Soul." 
 
 114 
 
ESTHER. 115 
 
 To which the queen : 
 " O King ! if 1 be favored in thy sight, 
 Come, even now, to-day, unto a banquet 
 Which I have spread for thee, and bring thou Haman 
 With thee." 
 
 So was it done, and as they drank 
 There of the ruddy banquet wine of Shiraz, 
 The King still prest her of her purpose, saying : 
 " What is thy petition ? " (Knowing well 
 The queen had not yet spoken her desire) 
 " But make it known, and lo, it shall be granted 
 Without condition, as I once have said." 
 And Esther answering : 
 
 " O most royal King, 
 If I have found thy favor, and it please 
 Thee still, O King, to grant me my request 
 And hearken my petition, let me pray 
 That thou and Haman come, yet once again, 
 Upon the morrow to another banquet 
 That I shall make for you ; then, please the King, 
 I may make known the thing that troubleth me, 
 Asking the King s indulgence, and his favor 
 For my petition." 
 
 Then went Haman forth 
 Joyful, and glad of heart at his preferment, 
 
n6 VASHTI. 
 
 And as he passed the King s great palace front 
 
 Lo, there sat Mordecai in the gate 
 
 And stood not up to greet him, nor yet moved, 
 
 Nor deigned to notice the proud Agagite, 
 
 Who strode imperiously by, filled up 
 
 With angry indignation at the Jew. 
 
 Yet chid he not aloud the Jew s contempt 
 
 But through his teeth he muttered as he passed : 
 
 " Accursed Israelite ! I thought ere now 
 
 From what I Ve heard of thy most abject waitings 
 
 And loud implorings to thy unknown God, 
 
 That thy contemptuous spirit were subdued 
 
 And thy stiff neck were yielding to the yoke 
 
 That I have placed upon it, and thy peoples 
 
 To drive and goad them on to death withal ; 
 
 And yet dost thou defy me, yea and worse, 
 
 Before my very eyes ; I will not bear it ! 
 
 If I have power to compass the destruction 
 
 Of all thy cursed race at a fixed time, 
 
 What curbs my will to have thee taken off 
 
 A few days earlier than all the rest 
 
 With special ignominy, for thy pains 
 
 Of silent insolence ? and as example 
 
 To all thy fellows of a less degree, 
 
 And thus deprive thee of the hope of glory, 
 
ESTHER. 117 
 
 Which I believe that thou dost entertain, 
 Of being chief and leader of a host 
 The greatest that the world hath ever seen 
 Marching upon a given day to death 
 Without escapement. Yea, I 11 so devise." 
 
 So, walking on, the stony-hearted Haman 
 
 Warm with the wine he d drank, proud with success, 
 
 Angered at his ignoring by the Jew 
 
 And gloating o er his prospect of revenge 
 
 His soul a chaos cf contending passions 
 
 Came to his house and called his wife, and friends, 
 
 To whom in boastful strain he spake, recounting 
 
 The number of his sons, his growing greatness, 
 
 The measure of his riches, and the glory 
 
 And power wherewith the King had clothed him ; 
 
 Of the great honor that the Queen had shown him 
 
 And of the morrow s pleasing invitation : 
 
 But while he talked the thought of Mordecai 
 
 Came on him and he spake again with rage : 
 
 " Yet all availeth nothing, while this Jew 
 
 This hook-nosed Hebrew, sneereth his defiance, 
 
 From the King s gate, upon me, as he sitteth, 
 
 And stirs my soul to anger ! " 
 
 Then his wife, 
 The sympathizing Zaresh, and his friends 
 
Il8 VASHTt. 
 
 Proposed the building of a lofty gallows 
 
 Whereon the offending Jew might speedily 
 
 Be hanged in sight of all the populace. 
 
 " And let the gallows be " Zaresh advised 
 
 " Made fifty cubits high, and on the morrow 
 
 Speak thou unto the King, that Mordecai 
 
 Be hanged thereon, then go, and merrily 
 
 Betake thee to the banquet." And the thing 
 
 Pleased Haman much, so that he straightway caused 
 
 The gallows to be made, nor could he rest 
 
 Until the morrow ere he sought the King, 
 
 But forthwith went unto the outer court 
 
 There to await until the King appeared 
 
 At early morn, that then he might request 
 
 The thing which so engrossed him. 
 
 Now it chanced 
 
 That when the King, returning from the banquet, 
 That night had stretched himself upon his couch, 
 His soul was troubled and he could not sleep, 
 But tossed upon his bed uneasily, 
 Gazing into the darkness with wide eyes, 
 While his deep heart-throbs shook his sturdy frame 
 And pulsed with feverish force in his hot temples 
 Rousing his mind to double wakefulness 
 In the oppressive silence, by himself, 
 And with his thoughts. Communing with himself, 
 
ESTHER. 
 
 At length, as though to break the stifling spell 
 That seemed to clasp him round with viewless arms, 
 He muttered to himself : 
 
 " And is this glory ? 
 
 Is this, then, greatness ? True, I rule a world 
 Of goodly kingdoms and broad provinces 
 (The joint fruits of a wide inheritance 
 And of my own good sword and conq ring hosts) 
 Whose people and whose princes, yea, and kings, 
 Do all proclaim me King with servile shouts, 
 And King of Kings with show of loyalty, 
 Yet how much boots it all ? One heavy stroke 
 Of fell disaster, one severe defeat 
 Of Persia s arms upon some foreign field 
 One month s desertion by great Aura-Mazda 
 Would turn a hundred daggers at my throat 
 Aimed by the kinglets who despise my yoke 
 And claim to love me only that they fear 
 The scourge of my displeasure, and the rage 
 Of trampling armies thund ring at their gates. 
 So only in my power is lodged my glory, 
 My greatness, in the strength of conq ring hosts, 
 And, if the gods ordain, within one day, 
 I may be robbed of both. And what of both ? 
 Upon the morrow would a million men 
 At my command take up the tools of war 
 
120 VASHTI. 
 
 To do my bidding, and a hundred kings 
 
 Send goodly store of tribute to the crown 
 
 From ev ry part of this far-reaching empire ; 
 
 Yet here, at my own court, in mine own house, 
 
 I am at times a puppet, a bound slave 
 
 To the designing princes who are round me 
 
 And lash me into anger with their speech 
 
 And then frame words for me to voice my wrath 
 
 Unto their own advantage. Thus it is, 
 
 No man in all the kingdom, save the King, 
 
 But that might rule in his own family, 
 
 Within the law, according to his wish, 
 
 Without suggestion, hint, or interference : 
 
 But to the King, e en this much is denied 
 
 By those who feign to serve him. Nor, forsooth, 
 
 May he e en take unto himself a wife 
 
 But they must fix the manner of his wooing. 
 
 So, have I been harassed, and otherwise, 
 
 Here in my court at Shushan. While I am worn 
 
 With great perplexities and cares of state, 
 
 One asketh this, another prays for that, 
 
 Even of the few that I permit to come 
 
 Anear me, till I scarcely know the half 
 
 Of what is asked, or even what is granted 
 
 In my desire to be soon rid of them ; 
 
 Yet the King s word, when given, is as law. 
 
ESTHER. 121 
 
 And now of this petition of the queen, 
 Which is already granted ere the naming, 
 It yet concerneth me what she may ask, 
 For well her conduct doth to me portend 
 Some weighty matter that she hath in hand, 
 Else had she not, unbidden, sought my presence 
 Staking her life on meeting my approval ; 
 Faith, she is brave as well as beautiful 
 And I could not deny, ask what she might, 
 Unless she come unto me speaking lies. 
 
 " Thus am I hedged about ! My boasted power 
 Filched from me by fair looks and honeyed words 
 By promises and dark insinuations 
 By cunning, and intrigue, and treachery, 
 And so, mayhap, is evil sometimes done, 
 And in my name, that should not know my name ; 
 While murd rous treason, here within the palace 
 Would strike me lifeless from my jewelled throne 
 With less compunction than a shepherd boor 
 Might club a robber filching from his flock. 
 
 HO, GUARDS ! THERE ! LlGHT THE HALL, AND CALL 
 
 THE SCRIBES ! 
 
 AND BID THEM BRING THE BOOK OF CHRONICLES 
 AND READ TO ME THEREFROM THE LAST MONTH S 
 
 RECORD ! " 
 
122 VASHTI. 
 
 The lamps, soon lighted, in the royal chamber, 
 Disclosed two golden guardsmen bove the door 
 Upon a mantel of veined Tabriz marble 
 Standing, half sidewise turned, in stern resolve 
 Crossing their jewelled spears before old Time 
 A figure bald, and bearded, bent and grim 
 Who, for a staff, leaned on the crystal tube 
 Of a gemmed clepsydra ; and so seemed Time 
 Himself denied admittance to the King ; 
 But the old tyrant s babes, the busy Hours, 
 Stole in atwixt the spears, and on the glass 
 The imprisoned water told the second watch, 
 Standing at level on the mark of midnight, 
 As the scribes entered ; when they sate and read 
 From out the chronicles, before the King 
 As they were bidden. When at length they read 
 How Mordecai had disclosed the plot 
 Of the two chamberlains to slay the King, 
 The King inquired : 
 
 " What honor hath been done 
 To Mordecai ? and what dignity 
 Conferred upon him for this timely act 
 In our salvation ? " 
 
 Answered then the scribes : 
 " O King, there hath been nothing done for him 
 In honor, or reward, or circumstance, 
 
ESTHER. 123 
 
 Save the approval that a loyal soul 
 
 Must feel within itself for such a deed." 
 
 Then the King queried : " Who is in the court ? " 
 
 And the King s servants answering said to him : 
 
 " Behold, even Haman standeth in the court 
 
 As if in waiting ! " And the King exclaimed : 
 
 " Let him come in ! " 
 
 And so came Haman in 
 And as he entered the King asked of him : 
 " What shall be done unto the man whom I, 
 The King, delight the most to honor ! " 
 
 And now Haman 
 Within his heart bethought him thus: 
 
 " To whom 
 
 Than to myself would the great King delight 
 To do more honor ? " And still thinking so, 
 Answered the King : 
 
 " Let thou the royal robes 
 Which on occasion the great King doth wear, 
 And so the horse which thus the King doth ride, 
 And the crown royal from the kingly head, 
 Let all these things, and straightway, be delivered 
 Unto one of the King s most noble princes 
 That he may have the man arrayed, withal, 
 Whom the great King doth much delight to honor, 
 And bring him, mounted, through the streets of Shushan, 
 
124 VASHTT. 
 
 Proclaiming, too, before him, in the city 
 His well-earned glory. Thus shall it be done 
 Unto the man whom the great King would honor." 
 When the King, answering Haman, spake, and thus : 
 
 " It is well said ! Make haste, take thou the apparel, 
 My crown, and royal steed, to Mordecai, 
 The Jew that sitteth oft in the King s gate 
 And do unto him as thou well hast spoken, 
 Failing in nothing." 
 
 Then went Haman out 
 In agony and deep humiliation 
 To do as bidden ; and throughout the city 
 (When the first sunny hours of day had come) 
 Preceding Mordecai like the King 
 Arrayed and horsed he called aloud : 
 " Thus shall it still be done unto the man 
 Whom the great King delighteth much to honor ! " 
 And when t was over, with a heavy heart 
 Did Haman hasten mourning to his home, 
 With his head covered and his garments rent 
 Boding much evil ; and his wife and friends 
 Mourned with him, and his wise men prophesied 
 That now the Jew would e en prevail against him, 
 And while they yet were talking there did come 
 
ESTHER. 125 
 
 The King s own chamberlains to bid him hasten 
 Unto Queen Esther s banquet. 
 
 So they came, 
 
 The King and Haman, straight unto the banquet 
 And as they sate again before the queen 
 This second day of banqueting and wine 
 The King inquired again : 
 
 " What is thy wish 
 
 Queen Esther ? What is thy petition ? Speak ! 
 Be not afraid, but make thy object known, 
 And it shall be performed, and granted thee 
 Unto the giving of one half my kingdom." 
 When, Esther, paling, answered thus : 
 
 " O King ! 
 
 If I have found thy favor, let me first 
 Petition thee to give me my poor life, 
 And then request of thee to spare my people ; 
 For we are sold and given unto death 
 Without condition. If t were only so 
 We had been sold to bondage, men and women, 
 And all our babes condemned to that estate, 
 I would have held my peace and bowed my head 
 Under the weight of a so deep affliction 
 Thinking it were God s will, to further punish 
 The sins of Israel ; for even so 
 Some little hope might live amongst our people 
 
126 VASHTL 
 
 Some gleam of dawn break through the awful darkness 
 
 For those that might come after us ; but death, 
 
 Coming at once, and unto our whole race 
 
 The thought of it hath blanched our strongest men 
 
 And set all Israel mourning ; for the enemy 
 
 Exulteth at our fall, and only thou 
 
 May st countervail our damage." 
 
 Then the King : 
 
 " Who is he, and where is he, that durst 
 Presume to do the things which thou hast said 
 To thee, or to thy people ? " 
 
 And the queen : 
 " The adversary and the enemy 
 Is now before thee ! T is this wicked Haman 
 Who would destroy us." 
 
 Then the King was wroth, 
 And rising from the banquet went without 
 Into the palace garden for a time, 
 And Haman pale with fear, plead for his life 
 Unto the queen, sinking upon his knees 
 Before her on the couch whereon she sate, 
 Begging for mercy ; when the King returned, 
 And seeing which he burned with jealous rage 
 And spake his fierce displeasure. Hearing this 
 The attendants seized the wretched Haman there, 
 Cov ring his face and dragging him away, 
 
ESTHER. 
 
 While thus Harbona, the chief chamberlain 
 Delighting still to witness pain, and death, 
 And hating much the crafty Agagite 
 Spake calmly to the King : 
 
 " Behold, O King ! 
 
 Beyond the palace court, near Hainan s house, 
 Yon towering gallows, fifty cubits high, 
 Which, only yesternight, did Haman build 
 For Mordecai, who hath saved the King 
 From the assassins daggers." 
 
 Angered still, 
 
 Gazing one moment on the giddy gibbet 
 With ready loop dependent from its arm, 
 The King spake briefly thus : 
 
 " Hang him thereon ! " 
 
 So the poor wretch was dragged away to death. 
 But Esther pleaded still before the King 
 Casting herself in tears down at his feet, 
 Speaking her kinship unto Mordecai, 
 Thanking the King for what he d done for him, 
 And then continuing thus : 
 
 " O King, forgive, 
 
 That I have brought this thing unto thy knowledge 
 Never till now ! But if this may not be, 
 And I have forfeited my claim to life, 
 I may have found some favor in thy sight 
 
128 VASHTI. 
 
 And though I die, O King, save them my people ! 
 Reverse the letters which the Agagite 
 Hath caused to be decreed condemning them ! 
 For how can I endure that this great evil 
 Shall come upon them ? How can I abide 
 The knowledge of their legalized destruction ? 
 Their summary extinction from the earth ? 
 And so if my poor life might be their ransom 
 Unto thy own and God s transcendent glory 
 Glad would I yield it. O my lord, my King ! 
 
 Let me not plead in vain ! " 
 
 So, passionate 
 
 And fervid in her tears and supplications, 
 Lain prone and pleading the tremendous cause 
 Of Israel condemned ; beseeching mercy 
 For all her race, e en though herself might perish, 
 The deep strength of great sorrow in her voice, 
 Spake this fair woman, when the mighty King 
 Stretched o er her prostrate form the golden sceptre, 
 Thus interrupting : 
 
 " Lo, arise, Queen Esther ! " 
 And as she did so thus the King continued : 
 " Be calm and fear not ! for although the King, 
 Under our Mede-and-Persian precedents, 
 May not reverse that which is once decreed 
 More than our humblest subject, yet withal, 
 
ESTHER. 
 
 When gross duplicity and artful lies 
 
 Hath been employed to give an unjust measure 
 
 The seeming sanction of our royal name 
 
 With seal and signet and due attestation, 
 
 As in this matter there hath surely been, 
 
 Then may there be decreed some special edict 
 
 To break the force of the impending blow, 
 
 Or rob of power that which portends much evil ; 
 
 As in this case, the Jews might arm themselves 
 
 And stand for their own lives with our approval 
 
 Against all men soever who assail them, 
 
 And so avert destruction. Mordecai, 
 
 Thy kinsman here, our own most trusty servant, 
 
 Is now empowered to draft, in our own name, 
 
 Even unto this purport, as he may 
 
 The needed letters royal." 
 
 As he spake 
 
 The King took from his hand his signet ring 
 And placed it on the finger of the Jew 
 While thus he added : 
 
 " Now our kingly power 
 And our imperial signet are with thee ; 
 Use them as seems thee best in this behalf, 
 And to our good queen s liking." 
 
 So it was : 
 The Jew, dictating to the royal scribes, 
 
130 VASHTL 
 
 Caused letters to be writ and made of record 
 
 According to the power granted him 
 
 Signing the royal name, and, with a touch 
 
 He felt to be the ransom of his race, 
 
 Affixed the mystic signet to the scroll 
 
 Redeeming Israel ; for in Israel s sword, 
 
 With the law s sanction for its trusty wielding, 
 
 Was Israel safe. Then Mordecai came 
 
 Out from the presence of the mighty King, 
 
 Clad all in royal garb of blue and white, 
 
 With robe of Tyrean purple, and fine linen, 
 
 And a great crown of gold upon his head, 
 
 Blazing with gems all gifts of the great King 
 
 And as he passed along the streets of Shushan 
 
 The people greeted him with mighty shouts 
 
 And bowed before him as in reverence, 
 
 And all the city seemed wild with joy, 
 
 But more than all, the Jews were filled with gladness, 
 
 And light was in their households once again, 
 
 And mourning ceased, and sorrow s voice was dumb, 
 
 And tears were dried, and tattered garments shed, 
 
 Glad-voiced hozannahs went up from their homes 
 
 And thankful pray rs for their deliverance 
 
 Were offered to the God of Abraham. 
 
 Blessings were asked upon the beauteous queen, 
 
ESTHER. 131 
 
 And hope and joy and gladness sprang like flowers 
 Up in their hearts. 
 
 So was their sorrow drowned, 
 And when the time was come to slay the Jews 
 According to decree procured by Haman, 
 The Jews fought bravely in their own defence 
 O ercoming their assailants ; for the fear 
 Of Mordecai (now grown much in favor 
 With the great King) was heavy on all those 
 Who sought his people s hurt, and many turned 
 To aid whom lately they would have destroyed, 
 And so the Jews prevailed, and many fell 
 Among their enemies, and Hainan s sons 
 Were first, among the many slain at Shushan 
 On that first day, and so upon the next 
 For lo, the queen had gained a second day s 
 Employment for the sword of Israel 
 Within the city and the palace Shushan 
 Fell many there who sought the hurt of Jewry, 
 But all throughout the provinces beside 
 None fell but on the day at first appointed 
 Unto the Jews destruction ; but throughout 
 Did Israel prevail, and so was saved, 
 And so had rest from all her enemies ; 
 And Mordecai caused it to be writ 
 
132 VASHTI. 
 
 With the queen s sanction and the broad approval 
 
 Of all of Jewry ; that the next two days 
 
 Fourteenth, and fifteenth, of the twelfth month, Adar, 
 
 On each recurring year as time shall pass 
 
 Be by decree forever set aside 
 
 Among the Jews, through all the generations 
 
 That Israel shall endure, as days of joy, 
 
 And gladness, and rejoicing, and good cheer, 
 
 Of giving portions unto one another, 
 
 Of gifts and charities unto the poor, 
 
 And that the time thereof be called " Purim," 
 
 That is, from " Pur," the lot, which Haman cast 
 
 For Israel s destruction, the deliverance 
 
 From which let Israel commemorate 
 
 Till all the race is gathered in the tomb 
 
 To slumber with the fathers. 
 
 So it was, 
 
 And so had Israel peace and quietude 
 Through all the years Ahasuerus reigned. 
 
BOOK VII. 
 
 THE FLIGHT. 
 
 " LJ OW strangely goes the world ! A year agone 
 
 ** Death s shadow lowered dark o er Israel, 
 And so all Jewry mourned exceedingly, 
 With such a depth of sorrow and alarm 
 As most did make me doubt / had known sorrow ; 
 Yet these were those whose strength of enmity 
 Rejoiced at Israel s sufferings and the fate 
 That seemed in store for her. But all was changed- 
 Changed almost in an hour . For, those three days 
 And their succeeding nights of piteous prayer 
 Seemed answered of Jehovah, their great God, 
 To whom they prayed for their deliverance ; 
 For so did this fair queen persuade the King, 
 Even at the peril of her own young life, 
 To let it be decreed that the condemned 
 Might with the sword defend them from their foes : 
 And then what joy, and gladness, and rejoicing 
 
 133 
 
134 VASHTI. 
 
 There was among them all who so had mourned ; 
 
 While the derided race sprang into favor 
 
 Even mong those who d sought to persecute them ; 
 
 (Pretended favor, mayhap, born of fear) 
 
 Yet as I learn were very many slain, 
 
 And not a few of these among the Jews, 
 
 But many more mong those who sought their hurt. 
 
 " Still did each lawfully destroy the other 
 
 According to the mandates and decrees 
 
 Of this great realm each drew his sword or dagger 
 
 To slay the other in the Great King s name 
 
 As bidden by unalterable fiat. 
 
 So did the State contend against itself 
 
 Ranging its people one against another 
 
 And countenancing both sides equally, 
 
 Save that the last expression of the law, 
 
 As seeming to be backed by latest favor, 
 
 Robbed those committed to the earlier law 
 
 Of half their wonted courage, and instead, 
 
 Filled them with weakening doubt and apprehension, 
 
 And so impelled them to their own destruction. 
 
 " O, would that law were justice ! Would that Power 
 
 Might realize its fallibility 
 
 And so exert itself to do the right 
 
THE FLIGHT. 135 
 
 According as it should be found in truth, 
 Instead of clinging to that stupid maxim 
 
 Which doth belie itself at every turn 
 
 1 The King can do no wrong, he cannot err j 
 An idle claim to make for mortal man ; 
 So this hath come to be this nation s boast : 
 Laws of the Medes and Persians never change? 
 O, shameful boast of a more shameful fact, 
 Which in this case filled four score thousand graves, 
 And crushed four times as many living hearts, 
 And all because a wicked man, and vain, 
 Had, by deception, in the Great King s name 
 Procured his wickedness to be made law 
 Law, which, when shown in its enormity, 
 Might still not be expunged, nor yet repealed, 
 Because some unwise, thoughtless precedent 
 Hath been found in the ancient chronicles, 
 And so, adhered to since without a question 
 That what is written in the Great King s name, 
 And sealed with the King s ring, should be reversed 
 Never, by any power upon the earth. 
 
 " Thus folly, unrebuked, grows into custom, 
 And custom, written down, is precedent, 
 And precedent established, is as law, 
 And law may thus be builded on gross error 
 
136 P ASH T TI. 
 
 Which so secures its perpetuity, 
 
 Pledging the King and State, thus, in advance, 
 
 To its strict recognition and enforcement. 
 
 Surely things are awry in this strange world, 
 
 When kingly power may thus be pledged to wrong 
 
 Beyond revokement, and so, life or death 
 
 Be weighed upon a scale whose beam shall tip 
 
 As the mere shifting weight of accident 
 
 Shall be impelled along it. 
 
 " Had the King 
 
 In this case finding he had been deceived 
 Annulled the product of the gross deception 
 And punished fittingly the base deceiver 
 As erst he would but for the honored maxim 
 Whose close observance wrought this great dishonor 
 And him alone, what bloodshed had been spared, 
 What innocent life redeemed from forfeiture ! 
 So had wrong been rebuked and justice triumphed 
 In its own name, not trusting its enforcement 
 Into the hands of those whose bitter wrongs 
 Urged them beyond its bounds, and in its name 
 To strike fierce blows for vengeance. 
 
 " This young queen 
 
 Whose beauty is the theme of ev ry tongue, 
 Whose spirit and great courage are admired, 
 As I have chanced to hear, by all her people, 
 
THE FLIGHT. 
 
 And by the populace of all the realm, 
 
 Was yet, from being bowed with a great sorrow 
 
 Involving all her people, Israel, 
 
 Who tasted all the bitterness of death 
 
 And all the sense of a malign injustice 
 
 Not raised thereby above that same injustice 
 
 From which her people suffered. But for this 
 
 Though she is given all that I have lost, 
 
 And her great glory founded on the ruins 
 
 Of my own pulling down I could have honored, 
 
 Yea, could have loved her with unstinted measure. 
 
 " Oh why should she, after that day s defence, 
 Which well insured her people s further safety, 
 Crave from the King another day of blood ? 
 A day of slaughter, and a day of vengeance, 
 Unclaimed of justice and bewailed of mercy ? 
 So fair in face and form, and so exalted 
 In her devotion to her harassed people, 
 I would for my own peace she had not stooped 
 To drink the bitter waters of revenge ; 
 The one thing only that doth seem to taint 
 The grand perfection of her womanhood. 
 
 " But why should I reflect on any soul 
 E en though it only be unto myself, 
 
I3B VASHTI. 
 
 Knowing, that I, myself am so imperfect ? 
 Beside, I am condemning her unheard, 
 The very thing myself did most complain of. 
 Yet, after all, what matters my poor words 
 Of condemnation, favor, or applause ? 
 The idle comments of a friendless creature, 
 Who, like a child that talks to lifeless toys, 
 Then lends its voice to frame their answers in, 
 Finds pastime listening to her own speech. 
 
 " O, how I long to see my little Meta ! 
 
 Poor child, I did delight to talk with her, 
 
 And teach her, as I might, some little good ; 
 
 Her company was as one cooling spring 
 
 In the parched desert of my loneliness. 
 
 T was only yesternight I dreamed of her 
 
 The sweetest dream, fruit of my squalid bed, 
 
 That not a vision of my best estate 
 
 On cushioned couch of ivory and gold 
 
 E er equalled. I was a child, I dreamed, 
 
 Playing beside a shallow, pebbly lake 
 
 Fed from the waters of the Pactolus 
 
 By spraying fountains ranged about the shores ; 
 
 And milk-white swans were sailing near the centre 
 
 Which was as smooth and placid as a mirror ; 
 
 And as I played there neath the full-leafed trees 
 
THE FLIGHT. 139 
 
 That fringed the lake about and cast their shade 
 Upon the grassy sod abloom with flowers, 
 Lo, little Meta as it seemed for playmate 
 Was with me, and we laughed, and sang together, 
 And rollicked with a pretty, dappled fawn, 
 Which ran and skipped with us in playfulness, 
 Until, half wearied into restful mood, 
 We sate upon a sweet moss-covered bank 
 And gazed out on the lake where the swans lay 
 Riding the glassy surface in their beauty 
 And moving grace, till, as the day advanced, 
 And the bright sun grew warmer in the sky, 
 These, like white, fairy ships came sailing in 
 As from far voyage, and when near the shore 
 They dallied neath the playing fountain jets 
 Pluming their snowy down in sportive mood, 
 Beating the falling spray with lifted wings 
 And revelling in joyous, sportive humor 
 Which seemed a part of all things. 
 
 " In a cove 
 
 A mossy indentation in the shore 
 A tiny shallop floated daintily, 
 Not tightening the white-linked shining chain 
 That held it to its moorings ; and in this 
 We lightly stepped, loosening its silver bonds, 
 And paddled out a distance on the lake 
 
I4O VASHTI. 
 
 Till on our view, above the sloping wood, 
 
 The domes and turrets of a mighty city 
 
 Rose clear against the background of Mount Tmolus 
 
 Silent, serene, majestic. This was Sardis ! 
 
 One time so glorious and magnificent 
 
 The builded dream of Croesus wrought in stone, 
 
 And brass, and gold, the marvel of the world 
 
 And still a city full of wealth and splendor ; 
 
 And this was Lydia, my native land ! 
 
 And this, my happy dream the duplicate 
 
 Of many, many of my childhood s days." 
 
 As thus soliloquized the outcast queen 
 
 A muffled figure clad in woman s garb, 
 
 Bent as from weight of years, and heavily 
 
 Leaning on a stout staff, and carrying 
 
 A grimy sack, which well proclaimed the beggar, 
 
 Pushed back the hut s rude door, and standing there 
 
 Spake in low tones unto the startled Vashti : 
 
 " Hush, woman ! Peace ! I am thy more than friend, 
 
 And come to offer thee deliverance 
 
 As one attached to thee by ties of blood, 
 
 And bound to thee by sense of loyal duty ; 
 
 And therefore, listen ! " (Having shut the door 
 
 The strange intruder faced the half-dazed woman 
 
THE FLIGHT. 14* 
 
 And thus continued :) "As a little child 
 I saw thee oft about thy home near Sardis 
 Where also I did dwell, and knew thy father, 
 Who was my father s brother, kinsmen both 
 Of mighty Crcesus, who died here in Persia 
 A royal prisoner of the great Cyrus 
 Nay interrupt me not, but be thou free 
 From fear of treachery or thought of evil 
 And hear me further : 
 
 " Now a year agone, 
 
 A nomad band of Bactrians from the East 
 Came wandering through the Lydian settlements 
 Bartering rich Indian stuffs for Lydian gold 
 And entertaining idle curious crowds 
 With magic conjurings and wondrous feats 
 Of hand-sleight and mysterious necromancy. 
 Among the rest, a little Persian maid 
 Was of the band slave of the company 
 Whom when they came to Sardis, there, they sold 
 In the slave market of the famous city : 
 My aged sire from sympathetic venture 
 Feeling a curious interest in the child 
 Not knowing why twas so bid in the waif ; 
 And this same little slave hath many times, 
 Since coming to our house, told of a night 
 A night of gloom and wailing here in Shushan 
 
142 VASHT1. 
 
 A night of awful mystery, when she went 
 
 Out on an errand for a much-loved Mistress, 
 
 Whom she hath oft described, and wept about, 
 
 Saying : They took me from her in the darkness 
 
 My cries unnoticed in the general wailing 
 
 And carried me away unto the camp 
 
 Of those ye bought me of a kidnapped slave, 
 
 And now a slave by purchase 
 
 Here a groan 
 
 Scaped from the woman seated in the hut, 
 Who thus half sobbing spake : 
 
 " Poor little soul ! 
 
 How hath she suffered suffered for my sake 
 Who am not worthy. My own suffering 
 Is chiefly, now, the suffering that comes 
 From knowledge of the suffering of others 
 Borne for my fault albeit unwitting fault 
 Or for the show of sympathy with me : 
 But whom art thou who speakest many truths 
 And seemest so possessed of certain knowledge, 
 And yet in thine own person doth belie 
 The very truths thou seekest to proclaim ? 
 Truth heralded by falsehood ! Yet this fact 
 Hath like its purpose, so I ask thee further 
 Whom, thinkest thou, am I ? save as thou seest 
 A poor and unknown woman, lone and wretched ? " 
 
THE FLIGHT. 143 
 
 To which, the stranger thus : " First, to thy last : 
 This which thou sayest, in a certain sense, 
 Might fix thy state and evident condition, 
 But, as thou st intimated of myself, 
 The truth is not consistent with thy seeming, 
 But truth is aye consistent with itself, 
 And, be the whole truth known there is no puzzle 
 In that which but a part involves us in ; 
 So words of truth from a poor little slave, 
 Fitted to other truths, which I have learned. 
 All, now sustained by what I see and hear, 
 Proclaim thee as the child I knew at Sardis, 
 Joy of a Lydian house, light of a home, 
 One time the pride of Persia, and her queen, 
 Dishonored without fault, blamed for no wrong, 
 Banned at the instance of designing men 
 A princess, queen, a martyr to injustice " 
 
 " Hush, whomsoe er thou art ! " the listener cried, 
 " Know that thy words are treason to the King ! 
 And that thy life, should these words go abroad, 
 
 Must surely pay the forfeit !" 
 
 " Loyal soul ! 
 
 I know the danger that thou speakest of, 
 But only thou dost hear, and so I fear not, 
 For thou art loyal and yet merciful 
 
144 VASHTI. 
 
 As have been all the members of thy house ; 
 And now I may proceed to answer further 
 Thy double query. Well enough thou knowest 
 Thou hadst no cousin in thy early home, 
 Of thy own sex, as also I well know, 
 Hence seems the contradiction of my story 
 In my own person which thou spakest of, 
 For thou rememberest little Aldiphernes, 
 Rough playmate that he was, and mayhap prone 
 At times to little acts of selfishness, 
 And boisterous withal ; and he still lives, 
 And he hath heard from this same little slave, 
 The story that hath brought me to this place, 
 Sought out by his untiring love and zeal, 
 To do thee helpful service. Raised a soldier, 
 He hath assumed the calling of a merchant, 
 Coming ostensibly from Cappadocia, 
 With wares and peltries from Mount Amanos, 
 To trade in Shushan. Now, his merchandise 
 He hath disposed of, and his caravan 
 Being reladen for his quick return, 
 He fain would have thee go with him at once 
 Back to thy own loved Lydia, where a home 
 Peaceful and quiet hath been made for thee 
 Beyond intrusion and discovery 
 Beyond the malice of the wrathful King 
 
THE FLIGHT. 145 
 
 Which even now sleeps in forgetfulness, 
 
 Or is o ershadowed by the dire disaster 
 
 To Persia s arms at far Thermopylae, 
 
 And her magnificent fleet whelmed in destruction 
 
 In the consuming fight on Salamis, 
 
 At which the Great King still is exercised 
 
 And troubles much, as I have lately heard, 
 
 Now mourning for the loss of his great host, 
 
 Now vowing furious vengeance on the Greeks, 
 
 And now plunged deep in black despondency, 
 
 Fearing the safety of his own great empire ; 
 
 So this distraction with affairs of State 
 
 Now maketh fleeing easy." 
 
 " What thou sayest" 
 The astonished listener here interrupted 
 " Fills me with nameless terrors and alarms ; 
 For though thou hast informed me whom I am 
 And kindled in my heart a ray of hope 
 Hope that but brings to life new power to suffer 
 Thou hast not yet proclaimed to me thyself 
 Nor intimated to me in what manner 
 I should elude the eyes of those who know me, 
 If not for what I was, for what I am. 
 Should I be seen set out and not return 
 Then might some inquiry attract attention, 
 And this again, lead on to some disclosure 
 
146 VASHT1. 
 
 To spur pursuit, and then, if overtaken, 
 
 Think of the brave man whom thou sayest sent thee, 
 
 And what were then his fate. Beside, what right 
 
 Have I, but to abide the punishment 
 
 Which is decreed against me ? and this step 
 
 Might bring swift harm to many innocent souls, 
 
 Then wherefore should I take it ? " 
 
 Unto which 
 The unknown gave this further in reply : 
 
 " Nay, then believe not thus ! Dismiss thy fears 
 
 Of future ill to others, and attend, 
 
 For once, to thine own good ; for life is dear 
 
 When it may be with pleasure to ourselves, 
 
 Or profit unto others, lived withal ; 
 
 And, being innocent, there is no justice 
 
 Or claim of conscience to be satisfied, 
 
 Then to what end shouldst thou abide here longer, 
 
 In misery and want, by death ignored, 
 
 Yet living to no purpose but to suffer ? 
 
 " Now as to whom I am : Deceit is folly, 
 And acting that which is not verity 
 Is lying, with the lack of hardihood 
 To falsify by simple word of mouth ; 
 Yet would I not be deemed a fool or liar, 
 
THE FLIGHT. 147 
 
 For though I am not what to thee I seem 
 Still am I that I now would seem to thee, 
 And yet forestall surprise, belay alarm, 
 And to the world without, which may have eyes 
 Even for the darkness, give no single hint 
 That I am other than I seem to be : 
 This much our safety and the time demands, 
 And this confessed I now may crave thy pardon 
 And say that neath this beggar s cowl and cloak, 
 Looking upon thee from behind this veil, 
 Thy kinsman Aldiphernes stands, thy servant, 
 Faithful to death for thy deliverance. 
 
 " Nay, mention not thy scruples, or my danger, 
 
 Nor waste thy time in speaking gratitude. 
 
 The first I hope may quickly disappear, 
 
 The second I opine is really naught, 
 
 The last I well believe ; though I m unworthy, 
 
 For well I know, I can but do my duty 
 
 If I succeed in doing all I wish 
 
 For one so worthy and withal so noble : 
 
 I only grieve the hard necessity 
 
 Which hath compelled this awkward subterfuge 
 
 To aid my search, and now for further plans : 
 
 My wife hath made this pleasant journey with me, 
 
 She hath a maid who will not yet return 
 
148 VASHTI. 
 
 And thou shalt dress as she doth and be maid 
 In seeming to Aryenis my wife. 
 So shall we go our way without suspicion ; 
 Come then, at midnight unto Zora s pool, 
 Where is our caravan encamped even now ; 
 Array thyself in this light Lydian tunic." 
 (Saying which, a parcel from the ready sack 
 He handed to the woman.) " Now will I 
 Proceed before thee, and in proper dress 
 Conduct thee to the tent of Aryenis 
 When thou hast reached our camp, and on the mor 
 row 
 Shall we set out for Lydia and new life." 
 
 So was it, and next day the camp was broken, 
 And they set out upon the travelled way 
 Up the Chaospes on its western bank ; 
 Vashti beside her kinsman s wife, both mounted 
 On Cappadocian steeds, lively, yet gentle ; 
 And Aldiphernes joined them oftentimes 
 As day by day they journeyed leisurely, 
 Now close behind the moving caravan 
 And now again a little distance back, 
 Passing the time in pleasant social converse. 
 
 T was as another life and dream to Vashti ; 
 Freedom, fresh air, bright birds, and blooming flowers 
 
THE FLIGHT. 149 
 
 Were all about her pouring out their sweets 
 Intoxicating every sense with pleasure. 
 An unwalled landscape, and an unvexed sky 
 Dispelled all but the memory of restraint 
 From her long-fettered spirit, setting hope 
 And thankfulness aglow within her heart ; 
 And each new day discovered some new joy 
 Or brought to sense some cause of gratitude 
 For this long-suffering woman. 
 
 As they passed, 
 
 One lovely evening of a perfect day, 
 Along the margin of a narrow valley, 
 They heard a cowherd singing mong his kine 
 Close by the foothills spurring out from Zagros, 
 Words that inspired her as the herdsman sang : 
 
 SONG OF THE COWHERD. 
 
 " I have no thirst for spoils or war, 
 I care no single jot for fame, 
 But e er the breezy pastures far 
 Unvexed by care, and free from blame. 
 I tend at will the sweet-breathed kine ! 
 Once Yima s charge, now, haply mine. 
 
 " With these I tarry day by day, 
 
 And night by night they hedge me round, 
 
150 VASHTI. 
 
 For I m their king ; my subjects they, 
 Prompt and obedient at the sound 
 Of voice or horn ; my gentle kine, 
 Great Mithra s charge as well as mine. 
 
 " And so, in all their hours and moods 
 We see the days and know them well ; 
 From midnight s star-lit solitudes 
 To sunny noontide s golden spell 
 We know the hours, I and my kine, 
 Great Mithra s charge as well as mine. 
 
 " When bends the grass with jewelled drops, 
 
 And Mithra from the Holy East 
 
 Lays hands upon the mountain tops 
 
 And steps into the world, I feast 
 
 On Morning s pomp, these eyes of mine, 
 
 While feast on dewy blades the kine. 
 
 " From midday s hot and searching sun 
 Neath shade of plane trees and chinars 
 We seek our rest ; and one by one 
 With sighs of ease, which nothing mars 
 They lie contented down, my kine, 
 While sleep, all undisturbed, is mine. 
 
 " At night the sacred fire aglow 
 Guards us, from Zagros altars high, 
 
THE FLIGHT. 15 I 
 
 While blazing constellations show 
 The far sweet pastures of the sky 
 Where may I sometime roam, my kine, 
 Then, Mazda s charge as well as mine. 
 
 " Thus t is, I would not change my state 
 
 To be earth s mightiest of men, 
 
 For Mithra looks compassionate 
 
 Upon the kine ; so, fitly, when 
 
 I and my herd shall pass, t were mine 
 
 Yond Chinvat Bridge to tend the kine." 
 
 So the song ceased : 
 
 " A pretty chant indeed." 
 Thus, simply, spake Aryenis to Vashti. 
 
 " Yea, true, my gracious cousin, and a grand ; " 
 Replied the other, and then thus continued : 
 " Such rare contentment, such unbounded faith 
 In what one has, and what one hopes to have, 
 I ne er before have heard find utterance. 
 If this poor herdsman truly hath the spirit 
 Which he hath voiced in what we ve listened to, 
 Then surely is he greater than a king 
 And happier than the happiest I have seen 
 More to be envied than if store of gold 
 
 1 The " Bridge of the Gatherer" across which souls must pass 
 into Paradise. 
 
152 VASHTL 
 
 And power unbounded were at his command ; 
 For, having these, what mortal yet hath been 
 Content therewith, or happy in his state ? 
 But this poor swain exalts his humble station 
 Singing its favor with the immortal gods, 
 Hoping continuance here, and so, hereafter, 
 With only transfer to the heavenly pastures, 
 But asking, wishing, praying nothing better, 
 The while insisting that he hath the best. 
 Sure t is a happy soul ! It hath been said 
 The needs of men are few, their wants are many/ 
 But this one s wants hath not outrun his needs, 
 And if he sing the truth both are supplied. 
 It is a blessed soul." 
 
 Here Aldiphernes 
 
 Fell back and joined them for a time to say 
 The camp would be pitched for the night near by, 
 Where a sweet spring leaped from a giant rock 
 And ran across a level grassy space 
 A lovely pasture for their hungry beasts. 
 
 BEFORE THE ROCK BEHISTUN. 
 
 Next day the travellers struck the ancient road 
 Leading from Babylon to Ecbatana, 
 And followed its worn course, veering to right, 
 Until they came to that great flowing pool, 
 
THE FLIGHT. 153 
 
 And that fair vale, and that majestic script, 
 
 Associated long with war and song, 
 
 Loved of all Iran, sacred unto Ormazd, 
 
 And for a while they sate their patient beasts 
 
 And gazed upon this scarped and polished page 
 
 Of great Behistun Rock, whereon was writ 
 
 In markings cuneiform and sculptured story 
 
 The history of Iran and the world 
 
 The tale of Semiramis and her wars, 
 
 Her victories and conquests ; Cyaxeres , 
 
 The Mede s, great triumph o er Assyria, 
 
 And Cyrus* mightier doings in the west 
 
 The humbling of Croesus, King of Lydia, 
 
 Led captive from sacked Sardis, crushed in spirit, 
 
 (His empire blotted, like a smitten bubble ; ) 
 
 Belshazzar s slaughter, and great Babylon s fall ; 
 
 The captive Jews departing by decree 
 
 (Bearing the golden vessels in their hands) 
 
 To build once more the Temple of Jehovah ; 
 
 The coronation, next, of mad Cambyses, 
 
 Who next beneath the shadow of the Sphinx, 
 
 With his shod heel upon the Pharaoh s neck 
 
 Plunges his sword in Egypt s living faith, 
 
 The incarnated Apis. Great Darius 
 
 Slaying with his own hand the pseudo Smerdis, 
 
 And with relentless force and energy 
 
154 VASHTl. 
 
 Crushing at once the Magian revolt, 
 And sending traitors forth to crucifixion ; 
 The questioning of a band of Scythian captives 
 About their far-off land beyond the Euxine ; 
 The story of his conquests far and near 
 And their most glorious issue, well portrayed 
 In one grand rugged climax wrought in stone 
 The subject nations in Atlantean figures 
 Upholding in their might the conqueror 
 Seated in state upon a carven throne 
 Dictating to the world. 
 
 Such was the tale 
 
 The beholders saw, and read, read there in silence, 
 Each one intent upon the mighty work 
 That Pride had planned and Wealth and Power brought 
 
 forth 
 
 With years of toil, upon the upright face 
 Of the prodigious rock, and looking so 
 Each one no doubt in his or her own mind 
 Forming a different est mate of the whole 
 When Vashti spake, and thus : 
 
 " It seemeth strange 
 
 That this great towering rock, silent as death, 
 Old as the world is old ; and no doubt witness 
 To some o the earliest of our boastful race 
 
THE FLIGHT. 155 
 
 Passing its walls in their unguided quest 
 
 Of homes and food, all free and unopposed, 
 
 Save as the elements, alone, opposed, 
 
 And only troubled that the choice of lands 
 
 For very plenty made it hard to choose 
 
 The good being left in weary search of better 
 
 Hath come at last to tell of men s fierce struggles 
 
 In the depriving of their fellow-men 
 
 Of the possession of the land they chose, 
 
 By force and conquest ! Yet t is surely so ! 
 
 And only is the victor glorified, 
 
 E en here as elsewhere, while the vanquished 
 
 With loss of country, loss of place and power, 
 
 Must here behold the keenest loss of all 
 
 Loss of that spirit in the conqueror 
 
 To do a gallant foe no useless wrong, 
 
 Portraying on the everlasting rocks 
 
 His ruined state and deep humiliation. 
 
 Yet t is a wondrous sight, and now do I 
 
 Well understand our Persia s pride in it ; 
 
 But let us on at once ; my life hath been 
 
 Such that this story now doth sicken me ! 
 
 Still would I not have missed it for the world ; 
 
 T will be a medicine for the hereafter, 
 
 So let us on, dear cousins, once again." 
 
I$ VASHTI. 
 
 Then on again to northward, passing west 
 
 Of old Mount Elwend, to the eastern base 
 
 Of Zagros towering range, where grassy vales 
 
 Pierce like green bays the rugged mountain headlands 
 
 And laughing streams dance down through lovely pas* 
 
 tures 
 
 Where sheep and cattle graze and drink their fill, 
 And songs of shepherds echo mong the hills 
 That guard the valleys flanks, and clustering groves 
 Cast grateful shadows through the heats of day 
 And shelter mong their boughs Night s minstrelsy 
 Locked in the bosom of sweet Philomel : 
 Thence on, and on, through ever-changing scenes, 
 Passing at length Lake Urumieh s shore 
 And thence away again trending to westward 
 Toward Lake Van of the enchanting islands : 
 Then turning northward still, trav ling a time 
 Amid the famous pastures of the Araxes, 
 Then passing that famed stream, turned to the left 
 And gained the wooded flank and southern base 
 Of Ararat, on whose bare rocky cone, 
 Now like a vasty dome among the clouds, 
 Rested the Ark of Noah, that first ship 
 Whose sides of rugged plank well interposed 
 Betwixt the remnant of our sinful race 
 And sure destruction in a drowning world : 
 
THE FLIGHT. 157 
 
 Then on again through fair Armenia 
 
 Into the ancient road from Nineveh 
 
 The trail of armies and the path of war 
 
 In centuries past and followed northward thence 
 
 Through eastern Cappadocia, over ground 
 
 Each rood of which was like a funeral slab 
 
 That breathed the living tale of the dead past. 
 
 " Here," Aldiphernes said unto the women 
 
 As they were riding through a lovely valley, 
 
 " Breaking the barrier of the Caucasus 
 
 And following down the curving coast of Euxine 
 
 A space, then turning to the left and striking inland, 
 
 The fierce Cimmerians in our Gyges reign, 
 
 First settled like a horrid human swarm 
 
 To spread themselves o er all our Asia Minor, 
 
 The harbingers of bloodshed and destruction. 
 
 Rapine and slaughter followed in their course, 
 
 Gyges, the King, was slain in stubborn battle, 
 
 And Sardis was the first time razed with fire, 
 
 Her treasure seized by the barbarians, 
 
 Her soldiers done to death, her people butchered, 
 
 Save at the citadel which stood all onslaught ; 
 
 When the fierce bands retired to burn and pillage 
 
 In other towns. Three generations passed ! 
 
 Fierce war continuous and wasting death 
 
 Had weakened the hard foe, when Allyattes, 
 
158 VASHTI. 
 
 Great-grandson of King Gyges whom they slew, 
 With his victorious armies mad for vengeance, 
 O er this same valley drave the fleeing remnant 
 Of the vast robber hordes limping from wounds 
 And lean with hunger to their frozen North." 
 
 " T is the same story ever, cousin ; " Vashti said, 
 " Man s fierce injustice, and God s retribution 
 The endless struggle still forever raging 
 Twixt Ahriman and great Ahura Mazda, 
 Twixt Good and Evil. But, go on, I pray thee ! 
 I would not interrupt, but was intent 
 Upon thy words and spake before I thought." 
 
 " Here too, Cyaxeres, the conquering Mede 
 Assyria s fate, and doom of Nineveh, 
 Fresh from the overthrow of Saracus * 
 Who made great Nineveh a funeral pyre 
 For his own body and his fallen empire 
 Passed, conquering the Cappadocian State, 
 To cross the Halys and to there cross swords 
 
 1 Ashur-emid-elin, the last of the Assyrian kings, called by the 
 Greeks, " Saracus." 
 
 " Saracus, unable to resist them, took counsel of his despair, and 
 after all means of resistance were exhausted, burned himself in his 
 
 palace." 
 
 Rawlinson s An. Man., vol. i., p. 500. 
 
THE FLIGHT. 159 
 
 With his great rival, Lydia s famous king 
 
 The conqueror of the Cimmerians 
 
 In unavailing war. First victory 
 
 Dwelt for a time with one, then with the other 
 
 Yet neither gained a permanent advantage 
 
 Till in a battle on the Phrygian plains 
 
 While the contending armies strove in fury, 
 
 And flights of arrows filled the wounded air, 
 
 And clash of sword on sword and helm and shield, 
 
 And clang of spears and hurtling javelins 
 
 And crashing blows of battle-axe and mace, 
 
 And shouts of men in hate s intensity, 
 
 Groans of the wounded, sinking to the earth, 
 
 And the wild plunging of death-stricken steeds 
 
 Bearing down victims in their agony, 
 
 Made the day hideous with the din of war, 
 
 And flecked the trampled field with gouts of gore 
 
 And streams of trickling blood, until it seemed 
 
 That death would claim each soldier ere it ceased 
 
 So stubborn was the fray and so relentless ; 
 
 When the offended gods themselves, appalled 
 
 At the great carnage and terrific strife, 
 
 Smote light out of the sun, and hung with shade 
 
 The fleckless blue of the o erarching sky l 
 
 1 This engagement is known among Orientalists as the Battle of 
 the Eclipse." 
 
l6o VASHTI. 
 
 So, sudden darkness fell upon the hosts 
 
 And dread seized on their hearts, and hate died out, 
 
 And the strife ceased in fear and awe and tremblings ; 
 
 A parley, then a lasting truce, ensued 
 
 Between the leaders of the opposing hosts, 
 
 And an alliance followed shortly after 
 
 Twixt Allyattes and Cyaxeres, 
 
 The first giving his only daughter, named, 
 
 As our wife here is named Aryenis, 
 
 In wedlock soon to the great Median s son, 
 
 Young Astyages. So came peace and power 
 
 For many years to all of this fair region." 
 
 " A blessed ending," said the banished queen, 
 
 " To the long, cruel tragedy of war 
 
 And its last dreadful scene. T was Mithra s self, 
 
 I doubt not, growing sick at sight of blood, 
 
 Put up his hands before his shining face, 
 
 To shut from view the carnage and the slaughter, 
 
 Who thus brought darkness on the shuddering world 
 
 And stayed mid air the uplifted hand of Death : 
 
 Blest be his name therefor, forevermore." 
 
 So sped these later days ; the soldier, now 
 Within a region whose eventful past 
 From bardic song and patriarchal tale 
 
THE FLIGHT. l6l 
 
 Was like a well-known friend, thus-while declaring 
 Its legend and its history of old, 
 And the fair exile breathing quiet comment, 
 And judging all things by sweet Mercy s test, 
 And all in turn selecting from the present 
 Small themes for passing speech and pleasantry. 
 
 Now struck they first the Persian conquerors path, 
 
 And pressing onward still, they passed into 
 
 The famous district of Pteria, 
 
 Where, reaching a small plain, the soldier joined 
 
 Again his fair companions and spake thus : 
 
 " Here, the great Cyrus on his westward course, 
 
 With his vast armed host, Persians and Medes, 
 
 First saw our kinsman the heroic Croesus 
 
 Who d come to meet him in the shock of arms, 
 
 With his embattled Paphlagonians 
 
 And Lydians, and stout Ionian Greeks, 
 
 Mycians, Celicians, and proud Carians, 
 
 Phrygians, and men of Miletus and Dorians 
 
 All gallant troops of Croesus own fair empire ; 
 
 And here was cast the first day s gage of battle 
 
 And all day long the fight incessant raged 
 
 A chaos of contention, horsemen and foot 
 
 Raining fierce blows continuous ; forward and back 
 
 Swayed by the weight of onset, or recovering 
 
1 62 VASHTI. 
 
 With desperate courage and fierce energy 
 Regaining inch by inch the coigne of vantage, 
 Lost at the outset, to the waver line 
 Where each side fought as moveless as the hills, 
 Falling beneath each other s blows and thrusts 
 But yielding not ; stubborn to stand and fight 
 Yet wearied beyond effort of fresh onset; 
 Till in the dusk of eve, bleeding and shattered, 
 Each side withdrew from the betrampled field, 
 Strown with the dead, unblest of victory. 
 
 " Ere morn our Croesus, counting o er the cost, 
 And being less in number of his troops 
 Than Cyrus was, deemed it the wisest thing 
 At once to cross the Halys and retire 
 To his own capitol, the splendid Sardis, 
 Arriving whence, he then dismissed his troops 
 (Save his own Lydians) and telling them 
 To come again with the returning spring, 
 He deeming not the baffled bleeding foe 
 Would for a moment think to follow him ; 
 But lo ! before his allies had been gone 
 The full hours of a wedded day and night 
 Behold a trooper dashing through the streets 
 His helmet and his armor and his shield 
 Cast from him to relieve his foaming steed 
 
THE FLIGHT. 163 
 
 Cried out. To arms! THEY COME! THE PER 
 SIANS! 
 
 No time now to recall th disbanded troops, 
 But ho ! the Lydian horse ! rider and steed, 
 Magnificent in courage, and well skilled 
 In all the movements of defensive war 
 The Lydian horse were there, eager and brave ; 
 Fleet as the tempests breath and frosty keen 
 They fell upon the foe doubling his front 
 Back in confusion, then away again 
 Striking the bold invaders such fierce blows 
 In their terrific onset as now threw 
 The whole invading host into one whirl 
 Of broken ranks, and troops disorganized 
 In madding tumult. So did this brave band 
 Of matchless Lydian horsemen with swift blows 
 Bring dire confusion, promising defeat 
 To that whole host of Persians and stout Medes. 
 
 " Oh, deathless, deathless is their splendid valor ! 
 
 O Lydia ! beloved of my soul ! 
 
 Such was the swan-song of thy chivalry ! 
 
 For on that fateful field, the last of all 
 
 On which thy sons might shed their blood for thee 
 
 Still beautiful, untrammelled, and unchained, 
 
164 VASHTI. 
 
 They well outdid their former mightiest deeds 
 And on the inconstant air, with their keen blades 
 Dipt in the rising sun, painted thy name 
 In rainbow hues across the wintry sky, 
 One glorious moment to be seen of men 
 And then fade out forever ! 
 
 " Prowess now 
 
 Must fail before a worse than juggler s trick 
 And courage, handicapped, yield no return, 
 For soon the wily Cyrus to the front 
 Urges a mounted band of dusky men 
 Riding on tawny camels, tall and gaunt, 
 Ungainly beasts, of unaccustomed form 
 And scent * to the astonished Lydian steeds 
 Which soon were wild with terror at the sight 
 And uncontrollable by their brave riders, 
 Who then dismounted, and so fought on foot, 
 And fell so fighting gainst o erwhelming odds, 
 Continuing the struggle till the night, 
 When in the darkness, the remaining few 
 Withdrew into the strong-walled citadel 
 Where yet for weeks the people still held out ; 
 But Sardis fell at last, and Lydia died, 
 
 1 Horse nature has not changed since those remote times, as the 
 scent or sight of camels will fill the average horse of to-day, not 
 used to them, with uncontrollable dread. J.B.K. 
 
THE FLIGHT. 165 
 
 All but in story, and her puissant king 
 Went forth a captive, never to return." 
 
 Now as they neared to Sardis, Aldiphernes 
 Stayed more among his drivers in the van ; 
 They reached the city early one fair night 
 And when the once queen and the little slave 
 Beheld each other, being left alone 
 They wrapt each other in a glad embrace 
 And told their troubles, since their parting, o er, 
 And so renewed their love, that purest love, 
 The love of women of unequal birth 
 Unequal age, unequal gifts and knowledge, 
 The growth of equal suffering shared together, 
 And equal to all trials, to the end. 
 
 In a secluded vale near Hermes stream, 
 Within an ancient Lydian demesne 
 Whose splendid home had fallen sometime vacant 
 When he who owned it fell in distant Greece, 
 A victim to great Xerxes war for conquest 
 The lights shone out again ; the fountain tubes, 
 Dry from disuse, again laughed joyously 
 Spurting with brazen lips their cooling showers ; 
 The long-neglected gardens bloomed anew, 
 
1 66 VASHTI. 
 
 And lovely walks, and bowers of quiet beauty, 
 Took form among the tangled greenery, 
 And tiny lakes smiled in bright emerald shores 
 To gem the sweet retreat where peace should come 
 To dwell with Vashti the long-outlawed queen, 
 Who here so found a fitting house of refuge 
 And lived in meditation, a recluse 
 With but her little friend the Persian maid, 
 And a few trusty servants. Here were passed 
 The best-contented and the happiest days 
 Of one so deeply wronged THE NOBLEST WOMAN, 
 THE KINDEST SOUL IN A WHOLE MIGHTY EMPIRE, 
 THE LOVELIEST HEATHEN THAT THE WORLD HATH 
 KNOWN. 
 
 J^^* 
 W7BRSIT7] 
 
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any 
 University of California Library 
 
 or to the 
 
 NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station 
 University of California 
 Richmond, CA 94804-4698 
 
 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 
 
 2-month loans may be renewed by calling 
 (510)642-6753 
 
 1 -year loans may be recharged by bringing 
 books to NRLF 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 
 days prior to due date. ^^^^^ 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 SEMTONILL 
 
 MAR 3 1 1999 
 
 U. C. BERKELEY 
 
 i i-> rvnn /-I 1 
 
U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES