No worship to Poppæa's setting sun Paid by him now to win his way at court, He boldly in Drusilla's name besought Access to the imperial ear: that name Procured him instant audience. Discomposed A little by the sudden way he made Simon stood faltering, and before his wit Was ready with apt words the emperor spoke: "What will thy mistress? She perhaps has thought The emperor was a trifle slow to claim His privilege at her court? Bid her take heart; Things now begin to shape themselves aright." By this time Simon had recovered himself; He said: "My mistress is indulgent, Sire. Knowing my fondness for my art, and wish That I might entertain the emperor, She begs thou wilt appoint a time for me--" "O, aye," the emperor said; "return to her, And if thou canst bring promptly back to me Assurance of her grace that she forgives My tardiness in the past, and will receive Me yet upon the terms she fixed before-- Somewhat abated, aye, but in the main Whole; for although the rabble rest she named Are scattered and not worth regathering, Paul Is under hand again, duly accused, And freely may be dealt with to our wish-- Bring, I say, word to me that she consents, And thou shalt exercise for me thine art At pleasure here within my palace halls. Go, and good speed, ambassador of love!" The sarcasm and the irony took effect To quicken in the sorcerer his resolve: For Simon his own doom was teeming now. He was infatuate with the vain conceit That he the secret in his art possessed Of a mock-supernatural power to play Upon the conscience of the emperor And fill his conscious breast with guilty fears: So once he saw Paul play on Felix's, Making him shudder on his judgment-throne; Aye, and so he himself in sequel played On the same kingly culprit with his spells. Beyond all, Simon was beside himself With suffocated hatred seeking breath In freak of demonstration on the man Who in the wantonness of despotic pride Had so despised and mocked and flouted him. Mad thus--judicially, and doubly--he, Having brought back the word the emperor wished, And had the promised day appointed him, Dared an audacious and a fatal thing. A series of phantasmagories shown By him, he closed with a presentment, clear In outline cast upon the palace wall In shapes of shadow moving like grim life, Of the dread scene of Agrippina's death: There hung the vessel on a glassy sea; The coping timbers causelessly fell down, But missed the empress-mother figured there; There followed then the ghastly after-act Of mother-murder done in pantomime-- More ghastly, that it passed in silence all.