Page:Maryland, my Maryland, and other poems - Randall - 1908.pdf/74

  Woman! I shall cling beside thee
 * As a marvel in thy way;

While I scorn, I shall deride thee
 * With this requiem of “Jamais!”

Sleep—with adders on thy pillow—
 * Wake—but spectral shapes of clay,

Flocking from the cloud and billow,
 * Goad thee with—“Jamais!” “Jamais!”

Eva sits on the ottoman there,
 * Sits by a Psyche carved in stone,

With just such a face and just such an air,
 * As Esther upon her throne.

She’s sifting lint for the brave who bled,
 * And I watch her fingers float and flow

Over the linen, as thread by thread,
 * It flakes to her lap like snow.

A bracelet clinks on her delicate wrist,
 * Wrought, as Cellini’s were at Rome,

Out of the tears of the amethyst
 * And the wan Vesuvian foam.