142
THE FATAL FORCE
S’AFI.
Speak ! I have this much of a god in me—
I am not shaken at your cries; my lips
Are silent at your -blasphemy ; my ears
Are strong to hear if there be truth at all
In your mixed murmurs: I command you,
speak !
AMENHATEP.
The burden of the madness of the Queen
Lies on the land: the Syrian is near ;
And she, believing that her godhead guards
Her people, sleeps. The altars are thrown
down ;
The people murmur.
wrong,
But be thou mighty to avenge !
She hath done thee
S’AFI.
To-day
I, Horus, shall become Osiris. Yea,
Strange secret dreams of some mysterious
fate
Godlike have come upon me, and the throne
Totters for your disloyalty.
AMENHATEDP.
Beware !
How died thy father?
S’AFTI.
That amazing god
Incarnate in him chose a nobler form,
And in my mother’s body sought his home,
Whose double incarnation is divine
Beyond the old stories. Yes, Iam a god.
AMENTATEP.
Beware the fatal magic of her heart !
For she is great and evil, and her voice
Howls blasphemy against yet living gods.
Thou knowest not the story of thy birth,
The truth.
S’AFI.
Then speak the truth, if so a priest
May tune his tongue to anything but lies.
AMENHATEP.
Sixteen strange seasons mingle gold and grey
Since in this very temple she, the Queen,
Spake, and threw open to our reverent gaze
A royal womb made pregnant with that seed
Of which thou art the harvest. She spake
thus :
‘* Princes, and people of the Egyptian land,
And broken priests of broken deities
Discrowned this hoar, look up, behold your
god !
For I am pregnant with my own son’s child,
The fruit of my desire’s desire. Most pure,
The single spirit of my godhead yearned
From death to reap dominion, and from birth
To pluck the blossom of its fruitful love,
And be the sun to ripen and the rain
To water it. My soul became the bride
To its own body, and my body leapt
With passion from mine own imperial loins
Begotten, and made strong from my own
soul
To answer it. I hail thee, son of mine,
Thou royal offspring of a kingly sire,
Less kingly for the single flower of love!
I hail thee, son, the secret spouse of me,
King of my body and this realm to-day !
For lo! the child leapt up within my womb,
Hailing me mother, and my spirit leapt,
Hailing him brother! Son and spouse and
king,
Eexulting father of the royal soul
That lies here, loving me, assume thy crown
And sit beside me, equal to thy queen.
For look ye to the burning south, and see
The sun grown amorous, and behold his fire
Leap to my godhead. For without a man
I single, [ the mother, have conceived
Of my own loins, and made me no less god
Than all your gods! Ye people and ye
priests,
Behold the burden of my life, and fear,