| |
| I AM dying, Egypt, dying! | |
| Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast, | |
| And the dark Plutonian shadows | |
| Gather on the evening blast. | |
| Let thine arm, O queen, support me! | 5 |
| Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear, | |
| Hearken to the great heart secrets, | |
| Thou, and thou alone, must hear. | |
| |
| Though my scarred and veteran legions | |
| Bear their eagles high no more, | 10 |
| And my wrecked and shattered galleys | |
| Strew dark Actium’s fatal shore; | |
| Though no glittering guards surround me, | |
| Prompt to do their master’s will, | |
| I must perish like a Roman,— | 15 |
| Die the great Triumvir still. | |
| |
| Let not Cæsar’s servile minions | |
| Mock the lion thus laid low; | |
| ’T was no foeman’s hand that slew him, | |
| ’T was his own that struck the blow. | 20 |
| Hear, then, pillowed on thy bosom, | |
| Ere his star fades quite away, | |
| Him who, drunk with thy caresses, | |
| Madly flung a world away! | |
| |
| Should the base plebeian rabble | 25 |
| Dare assail my fame at Rome, | |
| Where the noble spouse, Octavia, | |
| Weeps within her widowed home. | |
| Seek her,—say the gods have told me, | |
| Altars, augurs, circling wings, | 30 |
| That her blood, with mine commingled, | |
| Yet shall mount the throne of kings. | |
| |
| And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian! | |
| Glorious sorceress of the Nile, | |
| Light the path to Stygian horrors | 35 |
| With the splendors of thy smile. | |
| Give the Cæsar crowns and arches, | |
| Let his brow the laurel twine; | |
| I can scorn the Senate’s triumphs, | |
| Triumphing in love like thine. | 40 |
| |
| I am dying, Egypt, dying; | |
| Hark! the insulting foeman’s cry: | |
| They are coming,—quick, my falchion! | |
| Let me front them ere I die. | |
| Ah! no more amid the battle | 45 |
| Shall my heart exulting swell; | |
| Isis and Osiris guard thee,— | |
| Cleopatra! Rome! farewell! | |
| |
