The World’s Tragedy

70 THE WORLD’S TRAGEDY. MIRIAM Stay, will you go ? What, are you men — or tame ? PUBLIUS Faugh, wench ! is there no shame ? He kicks her brutally. The guard moves off. MIRIAM The dawn ! oh, curses on the dawn that breaks This night of joy. God ! my whole being wakes Into a world of rapture. I am I At last — the little fool that wondered why ! I am abreast of God’s whole tide of thought. Like gold into fine linen, I am wrought Into the royal vesture of the globe. I am the Empress of the City of Sin, Wrapped in its purple robe Stained with mine own maid’s blood. Yea ! for all glorious within Am I, most like the daughter of a king, Voluptuously languishing Like a great queen afloat upon the flood In gilded barge