Too soon you wearied of our tears.
And then you danced with spangled feet,
Leading Belshazzar’s chattering court
A-tinkling through the shadowy street.
With mead they came, with chants of shame.
DESIRE’S red flag before them flew.
And Istar’s music moved your mouth
And Baal’s deep shames rewoke in you.
Now you could drive the royal car;
Forget our Nation’s breaking load:
Now you could sleep on silver beds.—
(Bitter and dark was our abode.)
And so, for many a night you laughed,
And knew not of my hopeless prayer,
Till God’s own spirit whipped you forth
From Istar’s shrine, from Istar’s stair.
Darling daughter of Babylon—
Rose by the black Euphrates flood—
Again your beauty grew more dear
Than my slave’s bread, than my heart’s blood.
We sang of Zion, good to know,
Where righteousness and peace abide. . . .
What of your second sacrilege
Carousing at Belshazzar’s side?
Once, by a stream, we clasped tired hands—
Your paint and henna washed away.
Your place, you said, was with the slaves
Who sewed the thick cloth, night and day.
You were a pale and holy maid
Toil-bound with us. One night you said:—
“Your God shall be my God until
I slumber with the patriarch dead.”
Pardon, daughter of Babylon,
If, on this night remembering
Our lover walks under the walls
Of hanging gardens in the spring,
A venom comes from broken hope,
From memories of your comrade-song
Until I curse your painted eyes
And do your flower-mouth too much wrong.
—————
The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
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Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)
