Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/283

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THE MASQUE OF QUEEN BERSABE.
265

chrysothemis.

I am the queen of Samothrace.

God, making roses, made my face
As a rose filled up full with red.
My prows made sharp the straitened seas
From Pontus to that Chersonese
Whereon the ebbed Asian stream is shed.
My hair was as sweet scent that drips;
Love's breath begun about my lips
Kindled the lips of people dead.

thomyris.

I am the queen of Scythians.

My strength was like no strength of man's,
My face like day, my breast like spring.
My fame was felt in the extreme land
That hath sunshine on the one hand
And on the other star-shining.
Yea, and the wind there fails of breath;
Yea, and there life is waste like death;
Yea, and there death is a glad thing.

harhas.

I am the queen of Anakim.

In the spent years whose speech is dim,
Whose raiment is the dust and death,
My stately body without stain
Shone as the shining race of rain