greet the King, my father, And give him this, and bid him consecrate A stone for me. Now go. The gods go with you. 
(_The_ MAIDENS _go_.) I will prepare myself for burial, Since but a little time remains to me. There is the dust of Jehu’s charioting; The two Assyrian stallions which we gave him Coming to end my house. But first, those women. Hush! All is still. They must have reached the stable. That woman spoke the truth, the way was clear. There is no noise of men arresting them. The guards are still. Thus far they must be safe. There is no sound; and see, those men are quiet. O gods, send messengers to make them safe! Ay, there they go, on horseback. They are free. Now let me pray. “O thou great fire of life, Of whom all lives of men are but the sparks, Take back this spark into the fire that burns In the great sun, in all the lesser suns, In the suns’ moons, and everything that lives In wild blood, and the pushing of the spring; And if my ways were darkness, give me darkness, And if my ways were brightness, give me light.” Now I will decorate myself for death, As once before, when I was crowned a bride Here to the King. First, with this pencil, I Darken my brows, because they go to death. And make my eyes bright, since I join my husband And go again to look upon my sons. Next I will set this scarlet on my lips, And on my cheek, lest men should think me pale And say that I, the Queen, am pale from fear. Now I will draw Queen Helen’s robe about me. This golden bird is Helen’s very hair That Paris kissed in Troy, my father told me. Lastly, I will make consecrate my hair With royal gold, for I will die a Queen. Now am I as the beauty that I was, When in my father’s palace near the sea The princes of the Islands came to court me, Phorbas, and Kreon, and Andemakos, Kings of the Islands, bright-eyed from the sea, Men who had gone as strangers to strange lands, And there made friends by something kindling in them: Not like this Queen whom once they courted there. Where are they now, those men who loved me once? Perhaps alive still in their island homes. Decked with the precious things of half the world, And thinking of me sometimes, as men do Think of old loves long over utterly. And Tsor of Mura, whom I might have married, Had I been wise. He will still think of me. Now I will bare my throat that they may kill me. How the blood beats that soon will cease to beat! Poor servant blood, that kept this flesh alive Knowing not why, and now shall serve no more This captive soul that was an earthly Queen. And I without this servant shall not know The hour of pain, the sleepless night, the day Anxious as fever with this troublous world; Shall know, it may be, nothing more forever, Or know, it may be, all things burningly, Know god the spirit as a lover would. Now 

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