Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-09-08
CLEOPATRA.

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Here, Chairman take my bracelets,
They bar with purple stain
NY arms. Turn over the pillows,
They are hot where have lain.
Open the lattice wider,
a game DER my bosom throw,
And let me inhale the odors
That over the garden flow.
dreamed 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 persisted
As that Spiced aromatic paStille,
That wound the blue smoke Of its odor
Is now but an ashy hill.
Scatter upon me rose leaves
They cool me after l sleep
And with sandal odors fan me
Till into my veins they creep.
Reach down the lutte and play me
A melancholy tune
To rhyme with the dream that has van
ished
And the slumbering afternoon.
There browsing in golden sunlight
Loiters the low, smooth Nile;
Mid slender papyr1 that cover
The sleeping crocodile.
The lotus iOlls on the water
And opens its heart of gold,
And over its broad leaf pavement
Never a 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.
Anime, this IifeIess nature
Expresses my heart and brain.
Oh for a storm and thunder,
For lightning, and wild, fierce rain.
Fling down that lute-I hate it;
Take rather his bUclIler and sword,
And crash them and clash them together
Till this sleeping world is stirred.
Horlr IN my Indian baanfx-
My cOclxatOO creamy white,
With roses under his feathers,
That flashes across the light.
Look listen as backward and forward
To his hoop Of gold he ciings,
How he trembleS, with crest uplifted,
And shrielxs as he Inadly swings.
Oh, cockatOO, shrek for Antony!
Cry, "Come, my love! come home
Shrek, "AntOny Antony! AntonyH'
Till he hears you even at Rome.
There! leave me. And take from my
Thas wretched little gazeIle,
With Its bright black eyes, so meaningless,
And its silly tinkling bell.
Take him my nerves he veXes,
That thing without blood or brain,
Or, by the body Of Isis,
I'll snap his thin neck in twain.
Leave me to gaze on the landscape,
Mistily stretching away,
Where the afternoons opaIine tremOrs
Ger the mountains qutvering play,
Till the fiercer splendor of sunset
POurs from the west It's fire,
And melted as in "a 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.
1 will lie and dream of the pastime
.Eons of thought away,
And into the jungle of memory
Loosen my fancy to play.
When a smooth and VelVety tiger,
Ribbed with yellow and black,
Supple and cushion footed.
1 wandered where never the track
Of "a human creature had rustled,
The silence of mighty woods,
And fierce in n tyrannous freedom,
knew but the law of my moods.
The elephant trumpeting started
When he heard my footsteps near,
And the spotted giraffes fled wildly
In yellow cloud of fear.
i sucked in the nOOntide SplendOr,
Quiyering along the glade,
Or painting, yawning and dreaming,
BaSl1ed in the tamarisk's 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 1 reused me and roared in answer,
And unsheathed from my cushion feet
My curVing claws, and stretched Inc,
And wandered my mate TO greet
We toyed in the amber moonlight
Upon tie warm fiat sand,
And struck at each other our massive
arms
How powerful he was and grand.
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 tiexile and
Fought for me in the moonlight,
While lay crouching there.
Till his blood was drained by the desert
And ruttied with triumph and power,
He licked me and lay beside me
To breathe him, a vast half hour.
Then down to the fountain we lOitered,
Where the antelopes wandered to drink,
Like a bolt he Sprang upon them,
Ere they had time to shrink.
We drunk their blood and crushed them
And tore them, limb from limb,
Aud the hungriest lion doubted,
Ere lac 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 fferceneSs
In my veins begins To flow.
Come, not cringing To sue me,
Take me in triumph and power,
As "a warrior stOrming a fortress,
VIII not shrink or cover.
Come as You came in the desert,
Ere we We're women and men,
When the tiger passions We're in us,
And love as YOU loved me then.