And under saffron canopies all bright
With clash of lights, e’en to the amber prow,
Crept like enchantments subtle passing sight,
Fragrance and siren music soft and slow.
Amid the thousand viands of the feast,
And Nile fruits piled in panniers, where they vied
With palm-tree dates and melons of the East,
She waited for Marc Antony and sighed.
—Where tarries he?—What gift doth he invent
For costly greeting?—How with look or smile,
Out of love treasures not already spent
Prepares he now her fondness to beguile?
—But lo, he came between the whiles she sighed;
Scarce the wave murmurs troubling,—lo, most dear,
His galley, with the oars all softly plied,
Warned her with music distant, and drew near.
And on that night—for present,—he did bring
A pearl; and gave it her with kissing sweet:
“Would half the Roman empires were this thing,”
He said, “that I might lay them at your feet.”
Fairly then moved the magic all arrayed
About that fragrant feast; in every part
The soft Egyptian spells did lend their aid
To work some strange enamouring of the heart.
It was her whim to show him on that night
All she was queen of; like a perfect dream,
Wherein there should be gathered in one sight
The gold of many lives, as it might seem
Spent and lived through at once,—so she made pass
A splendid pageantry of all her East
Beauteous and captive,—so she did amass
The richness of each land in that one feast.
More jewelries than one could name or know,
Set in a thousand trinkets or in crowns
Each one a sovereignty, in glittering row
Numbered the suppliant lands and all her thrones.
And fairest handmaidens in gracious rank,
Their captive arms enchained with links of gold,
Knelt and poured forth the purple wine she drank,
Or served her there in postures manifold.