Trenches about the city! Ah! trenches with blood

overflowing!

Braying of trumpets and cymbals, of war the terrible

engines!

Neighing of steeds and a shouting! noises of captains and horsemen !

Groanings of trodden on dying! wailings of children and warriors!

Outcries of pestilence ravening! yarring of famine devouring!

Voices of prayers unavailing! cries as of women in travail !

Voices of mothers bewailing, blessing the wombs that are barren!

Flames! flames! flames in the Temple! Defiled is the Holy of Holies!

Voices of Silence and Death dominating the desolate city!

ANTONIUS.

In such a tumult would I were a god!

Fall down, ye heavens, yea, tumble, roar and crash;
Drive earthquakes trembling from their central caves!
Rage, rend, ye cloudy furies, venom spew !

And thou magnificent and black abyss
Which yawnest over me, disgorge thy floods,
And blow thy fiery breath; thou gaping earth

Shut up thy ponderous rock-toothed jaws and crunch
Cities and forests, and embowel them

In thy huge carcase; howl, and storm, and shriek,
Ye elements, in internecine strife!

I would that I might mingle in your broils,

I

As one of ye, and ease my stormy soul.
But I, so strong in weakness, weak in strength,
Can make no greater storm in which to whelm
Mine own.
How impotent am I! how small!
These portents bode some evil to the state,
Or to these doggèd and rebellious Jews.
Naught bodeth ill to me. I am so ill
In mine estate that I a portent am
Unto myself, but can no evil find
Sufficient to surcease mine endless ills.

V.

GARDEN OF THE PALACE.

SEXTUS.

SEXTUS.

Ан me! She cometh not! Four cruel hours,
In livery of hope, have held me racked
On expectation, straining nerve from nerve,
Till all the thews and sinews of my mind
Are well-nigh broken, and I shall go mad.
The terrors of this strange, terrific night
Have moved me less than what I fear for her.
Why cometh not? Morn openeth her eyes,
Awakened by forerunners of the day,

And through the western curtains of her couch
Looketh inertly; wingèd messengers

With clarion voice proclaim through all the world
Her early rising. My love cometh not,
And while she tarrieth all is night to me.

Why not? Why not? Impatience, work thy will,
And chase anxiety, which more tormenteth.
Strange fears affright me which I fear to express.
If rumour be not all compound of lies
The queen is merciless. In ignorance

I impotently grope, with none to guide
My hands to pillars of uncertainty,

That I might throw them with a giant's grasp
And in their ruins slaughter all the doubts

Which worry and torture me. Why cometh not?

Enter Salome.

Ah! she is there! Ye gods! how changed! As like Her former self as blight to blossom. Love,

What hast thou done?

Where hast thou been?

What hast thou seen?

What hath been done to thee?

life!

Nay, speak to me, my Thy hands are cold, thy heart Is almost still. Have terrors of this night Chilled thee with horror? froze the founts of life? Driven lips' speech to thine enfettered eyes And held it captive there forced to proclaim The one sense, horror, horror, horror? Speak! Yea, weep, and moan, and sigh and tremble; weep, And let thy tears dissolve the icy bonds

Which bind thy tongue and chain thy struggling heart

O Sextus !

SALOME.

SEXTUS.

Why these tears, these sobs and sighs

Which would wreck navies? Weep and ease thy heart Of overshadowing clouds; but let some words

Come to the shore not drowned to make me know

Why thou dost moan, what the disaster, how

To succour thee.

SALOME.

Alas!

SEXTUS.

This telleth naught

But that the weather is rough, the which I knew. There, there; weep freely resting on my breast, As, rescued, on a beach the shipwrecked lie While briny seas flow from them.

The gods pursue me!

SALOME.

SEXTUS.

Speak, my love.

Thou art dreaming, child.

SALOME.

Hast thou not seen their bolts this awful night?

SEXTUS.

But they were not for thee; the Jewish state
Hath now outlived the patience of the gods
And they do threaten it.

SALOME.

Nay, it is I;

They threaten me, and I am undone! 'Tis just.

SEXTUS.

Whence this wild terror driving hence thy sense,

Thy reason, trust, affection, yea thyself

From this sweet palace of thy beauteous flesh
And dwelling ruthless there where thou hast been,
Like satyr in a city ravagèd?