"breathings" poems - Hello Poetry

NAY! swear no more, thou woman whom I called Star, Empress, Wife! Were Dian's self to lean From her white altar and with goddess lip Swear thee as pure as her pale breast divine, I could not deem thee purer than I know Thou art indeed. Once, when my triumphs rolled Along old Rome and blood of roses washed The battle-stains from off my chariot-wheels, And triumph's thunders round my legions roared, And kings in kingly ******* golden bound Shook at my charger's foot, past the hot din Of Victory-whose heart of golden pride in wound Most subtly through with fire of subtlest pain- My soul on prouder pinion rose above The Roman shouting, to an air more clear Than that Jove darks with hurtling thunderbolts, Or stains with Jovian revels-that separate sphere, Unshared of gods or man, where thy white feet Caught their sole staining from my ruddy heart, Blazing beneath them; where, when Rome looked up, 'Twas with the eyes close shaded with the hand, As at some glory terrible and pure,- For no man being pure, a terror dwells Holy and awful in a sinless thing- And Caesar's wife, the Empress-Matron, sat Above a doubt-as high above a stain. Nay! how know I what hell first belched abroad Tall flames and slanderous vomitings of smoke, Blown by infernal breathings, till they scaled Thy throne of whiteness, and the very slaves Who crouched in Roman kennels wagged the tongue Against the wife of Caesar: 'Ha! we need not now And opal-shaded stone wherewith to view A stainless glory.' In that day my neck Was bound and yoked with my twin-Caesar's yoke- Man's master, Sorrow. I know thee pure- But Caesar's wife must throne herself so high Upon the hills that touch their snowy crests So close on Heaven that no slanderous Hell Can dash its lava up their swelling sides. I love thee, woman, know thee pure, but thou No more art wife of Caesar. Get thee hence! My heart is hardened as a lonely crag, Grey granite lifted to a greyer sky, And where against its solitary crown Eternal thunders bellow.

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Isabella Valancy Crawford

Caesar's Wife

NAY! swear no more, thou woman whom I called Star, Empress, Wife! Were Dian's self to lean From her white altar and with goddess lip Swear thee as pure as her pale breast divine, I could not deem thee purer than I know Thou art indeed. Once, when my triumphs rolled Along old Rome and blood of roses washed The battle-stains from off my chariot-wheels, And triumph's thunders round my legions roared, And kings in kingly ******* golden bound Shook at my charger's foot, past the hot din Of Victory-whose heart of golden pride in wound Most subtly through with fire of subtlest pain- My soul on prouder pinion rose above The Roman shouting, to an air more clear Than that Jove darks with hurtling thunderbolts, Or stains with Jovian revels-that separate sphere, Unshared of gods or man, where thy white feet Caught their sole staining from my ruddy heart, Blazing beneath them; where, when Rome looked up, 'Twas with the eyes close shaded with the hand, As at some glory terrible and pure,- For no man being pure, a terror dwells Holy and awful in a sinless thing- And Caesar's wife, the Empress-Matron, sat Above a doubt-as high above a stain. Nay! how know I what hell first belched abroad Tall flames and slanderous vomitings of smoke, Blown by infernal breathings, till they scaled Thy throne of whiteness, and the very slaves Who crouched in Roman kennels wagged the tongue Against the wife of Caesar: 'Ha! we need not now And opal-shaded stone wherewith to view A stainless glory.' In that day my neck Was bound and yoked with my twin-Caesar's yoke- Man's master, Sorrow. I know thee pure- But Caesar's wife must throne herself so high Upon the hills that touch their snowy crests So close on Heaven that no slanderous Hell Can dash its lava up their swelling sides. I love thee, woman, know thee pure, but thou No more art wife of Caesar. Get thee hence! My heart is hardened as a lonely crag, Grey granite lifted to a greyer sky, And where against its solitary crown Eternal thunders bellow.