Classic Poem

ODE XXXVII.— THE DEFEAT OF CLEOPATRA. A JOYFUL BALLAD .

Now, comrades, drink
Full bumpers, undiluted!
Now, dancers, link
Firm hands, and freely foot it!
Now let the priests,
Mindful of Numa's rituar,
Spread victim-feasts,
And keep the rites habituall

'Till now, 'twas wrong
T' unlock th' ancestrat cellar,
Where dormant long
Bacchus remained a dweller;
While Egypt's queen
Vewed to erase (fond woman!)
Rome's walls, and e'en
The very name of Roman!

Girt with a band
Of craven-hearted minions,
Her march she planned
Through Cæsar's broad dominious!
With visions sweet
Of coming conquest flattered;
When, lo! her fleet
Agrippa fired and scattered!

While Cæsar left
Nor time nor space to rally;
Of all bereft
—All, save a single galley—
Fain to escape
When fate and friends forsook her,
Of Egypt's grape
She quaffed the maddening liquor;

And turned her back
On Italy's fair region;—
When soars the hawk
So flies the timid pigeon;
So flies the hare,
Pursued by Scythia's hunter,
O'er fallows bare,
Athwart the snows of winter.

The die was cast,
And chains she knew t'await her;—
Queen to the last,
She spurned the foeman's fetter;
Nor shelter sought
In hidden harbours meanly;—
Nor feared the thought
Of death—but met it queenly!

Untaught to bend,
Calm 'mid a tottering palace—
'Mid scenes that rend
Weak woman's bosom, callous—
Her arm could grasp
The writhing snake; nor waver,
While of the asp
It drank the venomed slaver!

Grim Death unawed
She hailed with secret rapture,
Glad tOdefraud
Rome's galleys of a capture!
And, haughty dame,
Scorning to live, the agent
Of regal shame,
To grace a Roman pageant!