But I know
Not drunken may man's soul master his world;
And I now make for woman a new mood,
Wherein she will not bear to know herself
A heady drug for man.--I will not come.
_Poet_.
I, who have brought thy insult on the King,
Will scarce escape his judgment. But not this
My pleading. Seest thou not how wonderfully
The mean affairs of living fill with gleam,
Like pools of water lying in the sun,
Because above men's minds renown of thee,
The certain knowledge of beauty, now presides?
It must not be that thou, for a whim of scorn,
Wilt let thyself be made unseen, unheard of.
Beauty is known in thee; but, without thee,
It is a rumour buzzing hardly heard.
And without beauty men are scurrying ants,
Rapid in endless purpose unenjoyed;
Or newts in holes under the banks of ponds,
Feeding and breeding without sound or light.
For the one thing that is the god in man
Is a delight that admirably knows
Itself delighted; and it is but beauty.
And thou art beauty known.
_Vashti_.
Truly, I say,
I know not how to bear it; that for you
To feel yourselves, though in the depth of the world,
Dizzy, and thence as if elate on high,
We women are devised like drunkenness.
And what are we to make of ourselves here,
When in the joy of us you think the world
No more than your spirits crying out for joy?
Is this your love, to dream a god of man,
And women to keep as wine to make you dream?--
Now, back! or the eunuchs handle thee.
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