_Vashti_.

I would have lived in beauty once.

_2nd Woman_.

In whose?

_Vashti_.

I know the King finds relish in thy looks, Wench, and I have no care to grudge thy pride; But when thy face is named throughout the world For wonder, I will bear thy impudence.

_1st Woman_.

But tell us, Queen, thy thought; for we have made An end almost of eating; and it seems It will be somewhat strange, pleasing our mood.

_Vashti_.

Strange you will find it doubtless; but scarce pleasing, Unless 'tis pleasing to have news of danger.

Listen! your lives are propt like a rotten house.

Your souls, that should have n.o.ble lodging here, Have crept like peasants into huts that have No force within their walls, but must be sh.o.r.ed With borrowed firmness. Yea, man's stubborn l.u.s.t To feed his heart upon your beauty, is all The strength your lives have, all that holdeth you Safe in the world,--propt like a rotten house.

_1st Woman_.

Shall woman then not love to have man's love?

_3rd Woman_.

To feed his heart on us, thou sayest? O yea!

And how can a woman know such might of living As when upon her breast she feels the man, The man of her desire, like sacrament Feeding his heart, yea and his soul, on her?

_Vashti_.

Are we for nought but so to nourish him?

_3rd Woman_.

Thou art too proud, O Queen, too proud and lonely, And goest apart to have thy thought too much.

'Tis known, too much thought dazes oft a mind, Till it can learn nought of the signed evil G.o.d hath put in the faces of evil notions, That spiritual sight may ken them coming Sly and demure, and safely shut the brain Ere they be in and swell themselves to lordship.

Hence is it that an evil thought in thee Hath dared so far, and played its wickedness Strangely within thee, braving even into speech.

_1st Woman_.

Strangely indeed thy brain's inhabited.

What, is there aught prosperity for woman But to be shining in the thought of man?

_Vashti_.

I wisht to prosper in the life I had, That the G.o.ds might approve the flourishing Their heavenly graft of soul took from my flesh.

Therefore I wisht to love. And I did love.-- There came Ahasuerus conquering Into my father's land. My fancying hate Had made a man-beast of him, a thing, like man, Tall in his walk, but in the mood of his eyes A beast, and in the noise of his mouth a beast.

He came, and lookt at me; and, in a while, I saw that he was speaking to me there.

And all the maiden went in me before him, Swifter than in a moon which looks against The morning, all the silver courage fails.-- How cam'st thou to the King?

_1st Woman_.

Sold to him, I.

_2nd Woman_.

Bought by him, I: for he had heard of me.

_Vashti_.

I also, sold or bought; nay, rather paid: Paid like cash to him, that as servant king My father might have life, and a throne in life.

It mattered nothing then. [_The_ QUEEN _pauses_.

Often in early summer, as I walkt A girl singing her happiness, beside The high green corn, holding all earth my own, I saw, as my feet and my voice past by, How in its hiding some croucht little beast Startled, and filled a s.p.a.ce of the gentle corn With plunging quivering fear. And always then My heart answer'd the fear that shook the corn, With a sudden doubt in its beating; for I knew Within my life such rousing of dismay I myself should watch, with seizing wonder.

It was so: in the midst of my new love, That promist such a plenty in my soul, At last some sleeping terror leapt awake, And made the young growth shiver and wry about Inwardly tormented. Yea, and my heart It was, my heart in its hiding of green love, That took so wildly the approaching sound Of something strangely fearful walking near.

_3rd Woman_.

A queer tale, this.

_1st Woman_.

A spectre visited you?

_Vashti_.

Indeed, a spectre.

_1st Woman_.

That have I never seen.

Was it the kind with nose and mouth grown sharp To an eagle's bill, and claws upon its fingers, The curve of them pasted with a b.l.o.o.d.y glue?

_Vashti_.

The spectre was--my beauty.

_3rd Woman_.

It is as I said.

O Queen, send for a wise man in the morning; And let him leech thy spirit.

_4th Woman_.

I've heard, the best Riddance for evil notions in the mind, Is for a toad to sit upon the tongue; While, breathed against the scalp, some power of spells Loosens the clasp the notion hath digg'd deep Into the soul; so that it pa.s.seth down, Shaken and mastered, and creeps into the toad,--

_3rd Woman_.

Which gives a foolish kick or start to feel it,--

_4th Woman_.

Then the trapt notion may be easily burnt.

_Vashti_.

Yea?--I think mine would not burn easily.

With fire, with such indignant fire as pride Yields, when it must destroy itself to feel The power of the world touch it with humbling flame,-- With such a fire, whose heat you know not of, Have I a.s.sayed this--notion, didst thou say?

And it stood upright, with its shape unquencht, And lived within the fire.

_3rd Woman_.

Thou hast it wrong.

_4th Woman_.

Thou hast not understood the cure we meant.

_2nd Woman_.

Stop brabbling, fools; I would hear the Queen's mind.

_1st Woman_.

I too; I hate a thing I cannot skill; And thee and all that lives in thee, O Queen, I would keep friendly to my spirit; yet I do suspect something amazing in thee.