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Show MARC ANTONY. (By Aidani Caverswell.) Lo, wo are side by side! One dark arm furls Around me like a serpent, warm and baro; The other, lifted mid a gleam of pearls, Holds a full golden goblet high in air; Her face is 'shining thro' her cloudy curls With light that makes me drunken unaware, And with my chin upon my breast, I smile Upon her, darkening inward all the while. And thro' tho chamber curtains, backward rolled By spicy winds that fan my fover'd head I seo a sandy flat slope, yellow as gold To the brown banks of Nllus wrinkling red In the slow sunset; and mine oyes behold Tho west low down beyond the river's bed Grow sullen, ribbed with many a brazen bar, Under the white smile of the Cyprian's star. A better Roman vision floated back Before me, in my dizzy soul's despite The Roman armor brindles on my back, My swelling nostrils drink the fumes of fight; But then she smiles upon me, and I lack Tho warrior will that frowns on lewd delight, And, passionately proud and desolate, I smilo in answer to the joy I hate. Joy, coming uninvokod, asloop, awake Makes sunshine on tho grave of buried powers Oft-times I wholly loathe her for tho sake Of manhood sllpt away in easeful hours; But from her Hps mild words and kisses break, Till I am like a ruin mocked with- flowers; I think of Honor's face, then turn to hers Dark, like tho splendid shame that she confers. Lo, how her dark arm holds mo I am bound By the soft touch of fingers light as leaves; I drag my face asido, but at tho sound Of her low voice I turn, and she perceives The cloud of Rome upon my face, and round My nock she twlnos her odorous arms and grieves, Shedding upon a heart as soft as they Tears 'tis a hero's task to kiss away. And then she loosens from mo, trembling still, Like a bright throbbing robe, and bids me "Go!" When pearly tears her drooping oyelids fill And her swart beauty whitens Into snow, And lost to use of life and hope and will I gaze upon her with a warrior's woo, And turn, and watch her sidelong, in annoy, ' Then snatch her to mo, flushed with shame and . joy. Once more, 0 Rome, I would bo son of thine! 1 This constant prayer my chaln'd soul over salth. 1 thirst for honorable end I pine j Not thus to kiss way my mortal" breath; - 1 But comfort poor as this may not be mine, j I cannot even die a Roman death; I I seek a Roman's grave, a Roman's rest; I But, dying, I would die upon her breast. From an Old Scrap Book. |