Then slowly filling them with drowsy fume,

When, looking up with half-dazed eyes,

I saw the King upon his golden throne:

And through my body

Raged rebellious blood,

In baffled riot beating

At my corded wrists,

As if to burst the galling bonds,

That I might hurl that lean, swart face,

So idly turning towards us,

With thin curled lips,

And cold, incurious eyes,

To headlong death--

Yea! even though I tumbled

The towers of Babylon round about my head.

And, when our captors bowed their foreheads low,

Obsequious to the throne,

I stood upright,

And gazed my loathing on that listless form--

The gay, embroidered robe,

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