The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1874-03-06
CLEOPATRA.

dck rood. Aside from the maghincchce oi its ui'
m. the idea of the poem Is so bold and origins
Al ysry few will feel themselves familiar with
an on a second reading. The idea OF the Me
never had an ampler or more ittin
lstration.l
Here, CHAIRMAN, take my bracelets
They bar with purple stain
MY arms turn over my pillows
They are hot where have lain
Open the lattice wider,
A gauze on my bosom throw,
And let me inhale the odors
That over the garden blow.
dreamed that was with my Antony,
And in his arms lay;
All, me the vision has vanished
Its music has died away;
The flame and the perfume have perished-
AS this spiced aromatic pastille
That wound the blue smoke of it's odor
Is now but an ashy hill.
Scatter upon me rose leaves
They cool me after my sleep,
And with sandal odors fan me,
Till into my veins they creep;
Reach down the lutte, and play me
melancholy tune,
To rhyme with the dream that has vani shed,
And the slumbering afternoon.
There, browsing ia golden sunlight,
Letters the slow, smooth Nile,
Through slender papyri, that cover
The sleeping crocodile.
The lotus rolls on the water,
And opens its heart of gold.
And over its broad-leaf pavement
Never ripple is rolled.
The twilight breeze Is too lazy
Those feathery palms to wave,
And yon little cloud is as motionless,
AS stone above grave.
All me this lifeless nature
Expresses my heart and brain!
Oh for a storm and thunder
For lightning and wild fierce rain!
Fling down that lute-I hate II !
Take rather his buckler and sword,
And crash and clash them together
Till this sleeping world is stirred.
Hark to my Indian beauty
My cockatoo, creamy white,
With roses under his feathers
That flash across the light.
Look listen as backward and forward
To his hoop of gold he clings,
How he trembles, with crest uplifted.
And shrieks az he madly swings
Oh, cockatoo, shrek for Antony!
Cry "Come my love, come homev
Shrek, "Antony Antony! Antonyw
Till he hears you even in Rome.
There-leave me, and take from my chamber
That wretched little gaZelle,
With its knight black eyes so meaningless,
And its silly tiukling bell
Take hfm-my nerves he yexes-
The thing without blood or BRAIN
Or, by the body Of Isis,
IN snap his thin neck in twain
Leave me 10 gaze at the landscape
Mistily stretching away,
When the afternoons opaline tremors
Der the mountains quivering play;
Till the fiercer splendor of sunset
Pours from the west its fire,
And melted, as in u crucible,
Their earthly forms expire;
And the bald, blear skull of the desert
With glowing mountains is crowned.
That burning like molten jewels
Circle its temples round.
/ will lie and dream of the past-time,
IONS of thought away,
And through the jungle of memory
Loosen my fancy to play;
When, a smooth and velvety tiger,
Ribbed with yellow and black,
Supple and cushioned-footed,
/ wandered, where never the track
OF human creature had rustled
The silence of the mighty woods,
And fierce in tyrannous freedom,
/ knew but the law of my moods.
The elephant, trumpeting, started
When he heard my footsteps near.
And the spotted S, ~affes fled wildly
In yellow cloud of fear.
sucked in the noontide of splendor,
Quivering along the glade,
Or yawning, painting and dreaming,
Basked in the Tamarisk shade,
Till heard my wild mate roaring,
As the shadows of night came on.
To brood in the trees thick branches,
And the shadow of sleep was gone;
Then reused, and roared III answer,
And unsheathed from my cushioned feet
My curv1ng claws. and stretched me,
And wandered my mate to greet.
We toyed in the amber moonlight
Upon the warm fiat sand,
And struck at each other our massive arms
How powerful he was and grand
His yellow eyes flashed fiercely
As he crouched and gazed at me,
And his quivering tail, like a serpent,
Twitched, curviDg nervously.
Then like a storm he seized me,
With a wild triumphant cry,
And we met, as two clouds in heaven
When the thunders before them fly.
We grappled and struggled together,
For his love like his rage was rude;
And his teeth in the swelling folds of my neck
At times. in our play, drew blood.
Often another sutton
For ! was hexile and fair
Fought for me in the moonlight,
While lay COUGHING there,
Till his blood was drained by the desert;
And, rufiled with triumph and power,
He licked me and lay beside me
To breath him vast half-hour.
linen uOWn 10 tue FOUNTAIN we lOltereu,
Where the antelopes came to drink;
Like a bolt we sprang upon them,
Ere they had time to shrink.
We drank their blood and crushed them,
And tore them limb from limb,
And the hungriest lion doubted
Ere he disputed with him.
That was a life TO live for!
Not this weak human life,
With its frivolous bloodless passions,
Its poor and petty strife!
Come to my arms, my hero!
The shadows of twilight grow,
And the tigers ancient herceness
In my veins begins to flow.
Come not cringing to sue me
Take me with the triumph and power,
As a warrior that storms fortress
will not shrink or cover.
Come as you came i'll the desert,
Ere we were women and men,
When the tiger passions were in us,
And love as you loved me then!