Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FRANCISCA REINA, by AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FRANCISCA REINA, by                    
First Line: A stricken queen, but still a queen of queens
Last Line: "with orisons unto the rising sun."
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Drought; Sacrifices; San Francisco Earthquake And Fire (1906); Smoke


A stricken queen, but still a queen of queens,
She sat upon the sloping of her hills
Where wreck and fire had danced the dance of death.

Her forehead bowed upon her knees she sat,
An instant stunned by her transcendant woe.
The smoke still burnt her eyelids, and her throat
Quivered with pungent acids of the flame.
The acrid vapors of the steaming muck
Were in her nostrils, and her slackened breath
Was spent through ashes on her bleeding lips.

A while all paralyzed, then slow her head
Upraised. Her eyes were dim. She saw through mists
The vista of her hills all gray and still.
When would they laugh again? Ten thousand homes
Had burnt their hearthstones into monuments
For her as dead. That cup unveiled she saw
Which fate has ready for the desolate,
The black wine of despair each hour new pressed
From envy of the nether gods. This cup,
Scorned lightly in her pride, he thrust at her
With coward jeers: "Drink, drink, thou boastful dame.
Dost mock it now? There's nothing more for thee."
One glance! The vision came! Her spirit's light
Broke forth in aureole about her head—
Glory immortal of a risen soul.
Upright she stood. Hot cinders burnt her feet—
She knew it not. With fingers tense, the cup
She seized and, like one born to her own house,
That black wine of despair she tossed aloft
Upon the embers and the blistering rocks.
" 'Tis not for me, a queen, this dastard draught.
For lo! They come—my children from the sea
Of fire—each man a king. Their garments smoke.
Their brows deep seamed, but bright with hope. Their eyes
Are brave, their faces set to conquer death.
My sons! My sons!" With touch of its old joy
Her voice rang out among the blackened tombs.
"Come near, ye bruiséd ones. Unflinching hearts,
Together make we sacrificial vows
With orisons unto the rising sun."





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