Chilling the tides that wont to flow Like lava in their scorching flood— An apathy more dull than care, More sad than pain, more still than wo— Twin sister to despair. And thinkest thou I would stoop to live On mercy such as Rome might give— Or what is Rome, and what am I, That I should bend a servile knee, The free-born daughter of the free, To her, whose victor lords have thrown Their sceptre-swords before my throne, And lost their empires at my frown? Or deemest thou, impotent and base, That I, of eldest earthly race, Will thread in slow procession pace Rome’s proud triumphal way— A crownless queen, a shameless slave, Beside thy golden chariot’s nave, With fettered heads supine to crave Plebeian pity—Roman ruth— And with unroyal tears, forsooth! “To make a Roman Holyday?” An emperor thou! and I—no more! My foot is on life’s latest shore. Away! even now I die. I feel it coursing through my veins, The peace that soon shall still my pains, And calm my ceaseless wo. Away, proud chief! I would not yield My empire for the conquered world O’er which thine eagle wing is furled— My empire in the grave. Hades shall rise my steps to greet, Ancestral kings my advent meet, Sesostris, of the man-drawn car, And Rhamses, thunderbolt of war, Amenophis, of giant frame, And Tathrak, of immortal name. The mighty Ptolemies shall rise With greeting in their glorious eyes, And cry from lips no longer dumb— “Hail, sister queen, for thou hast come Right royally thy feres among. Our thousand thrones have tarried long, Till thou shouldst mount thine own. Last, loveliest, frailest of our line, By this immortal death of thine Thou hast outdared all daring—thou Art first among us. Lo! we bow— We kneel—before thee! Sister queen, The end of fortune here is seen, Ascend thy fated throne.” And now my woman-heart is steeled; Call forth the bravest of the brave, Your reapers of the crimson field, To whom the battle-cry is breath, To look upon a woman’s death. I have outlived my love, my power, My country’s freedom, people’s name,