Gaze now your fill! Behold Queen Vashti’s eyes!
How large they gleam beneath her inch of brow!
How like a great white star, her splendid face
Shines through the midnight forest of her hair!
And see the crushed pomegranate of her mouth!
Observe her arms, her throat, her gleaming breasts,
Whereon the royal jewels rise and fall!—
And note the crescent curving of her hips,
And lovely limbs suggested ’neath her robes!
Gaze, gaze, I say, for these have made her queen!
She hath no mind, no heart, no dignity,
Worth royal recognition and regard;
But her fair body approbation meets
And whets the sated appetite of kings!
Now ye have seen what she was bid to show.
The queen hath played her part and begs to go.
Ahasueras
Ay, Vashti, go and never more return!
Not only hast thou wronged thine own true lord,
And mocked and shamed me in the people’s eyes,
But thou hast wronged all princes and all men
By thy pernicious and rebellious ways.
Queens act and subjects imitate. So let
Queen Vashti weigh her conduct and her words,
Or be no more called ‘queen!’
Vashti
I was a princess ere I was a queen,
And worthy of a better fate than this!
There lies the crown that made me queen in name!
Here stands the woman—wife in name alone!
Now, no more queen—nor wife—but woman still—
Ay, and a woman strong enough to be
Her own avenger.
THE CHOOSING OF ESTHER
(FROM THE DRAMA OF MIZPAH)
Ahasueras
Tell me thy name!
Esther
My name, great sire, is Esther.