Together.
All was silent in the palace of the King,
Save the wind-blown torch-flame guttering,
And a moth that came
Beating with his wings about the flame,
And the sentries drawing breath,
With their spear-heads drooped saluting death.
Moon-Blossom.
Then she said: “The gods conspired to give gifts of beauty to me,
And the beauty gave the gift of death to all who came to woo me;
Now of all the men who loved me, none remain,
And of both the men who had me neither knew me
Surely all my past was evil, for its fruit is bitter pain.
Rose-Flower.
“I will go to some lone island where I am not made a story,
Where my beauty made no widow, nor no orphan wanting bread;
Where no human sorrow suffers the disaster of my glory,
And my eyes may lose the vision of the hauntings of the dead.”
Moon-Blossom.
“Day and night the dead men haunt me, whom the madness of my caring
Brought from home and wives and children to be bones upon the plain;
All the panther-like for beauty, all the lion-like for daring,
And they lie among the bindweed now, uncovered by the rain.”
Together.
All was silent in the palace of the King,
Save the soft-foot watchers whispering;
All was dark, save in the porch
The wind-blown fire of a torch,
And the sentries still as in a stound
With their spear-heads drooped upon the ground.