EVA sits on the ottoman there, Sits by a Psyche carved in stone, With just such a face and just such an air, As Esther upon her throne. She's sifting lint for the brave who bled, And I watch her fingers float and flow Over the linen, as thread by thread, It flakes to her lap like snow. A bracelet clinks on her delicate wrist, Wrought, as Cellini's were at Rome, Out of the tears of the amethyst And the wan Vesuvian foam. And full on the bauble-crest alway— A cameo image keen and fine— Glares thy impetuous knife, Corday, And the lava-locks are thine. I thought of the wehr-wolves on our trail, Their gaunt fangs sluiced with gouts of blood; Till the Past, in a dead, mesmeric veil, Drooped with a wizard flood. Till the surly blaze, through the iron bars, Shot to the hearth, with a pang and cry— And a lank howl plunged from the Champ de Mars To the Column of July. Till Corday sprang from the gem, I swear, And the dove-eyed damsel I knew had flown— For Eva was not on the ottoman there, By Psyche carved in stone. She grew like a Pythoness, flushed with fate, With the incantation in her gaze— A lip of scorn, an arm of hate, And a dirge of the Marseillaise! Eva, the vision was not wild, When wreaked on the tyrants of the land— For you were transfigured to Nemesis, child, With the dagger in your hand! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN APPEAL TO CATS IN THE BUSINESS OF LOVE; SONG by THOMAS FLATMAN TO MY EXCELLENT LUCASIA, ON OUR FRIENDSHIP. 17TH JULY 1651 by KATHERINE PHILIPS TO A LADY: SHE REFUSING TO CONTINUE A DISPUTE WITH ME by MATTHEW PRIOR YEW-TREES by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THE LITTLE MATCH-GIRL by HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN DEATH by EVGENY ABRAMOVICH BARATYNSKY TO MRS -- RETURNING FINE HYACINTH PLANT AFTER BLOOM IS OVER by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD TO HIS WORSHIPFULL WEL-WILLER, MAISTER EDWARD LEIGH by RICHARD BARNFIELD |