Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/48

HEBE Of the cage's door, and headlong flung

Sir Marco, ere he could breathe, the dolt!

Plump on the lion he bounced, and fell

Beyond, and Hebe leapt for him there,—

No need for their lady's voice to tell

The work in hand for that ready pair.

They say one would n't have cared to see

The group commingled, man and beast,

Or to hear the shrieks and roars,—all three

One red, the feasters and the feast!

Guns, pistols, blazed, till the lion sprawled,

Shot dead, but Hebe held to her prey

And drank his blood, while keepers bawled

And their hot irons made yon scars that day.

But the woman? True, I had forgot:

She never flinched at the havoc made,

Nor gave one cry, but there on the spot

Drove to the heart her poniard-blade,

Straight, like a man, and fell, nor stirred

Again;—so that fine pair were dead;

One lied, and the other kept her word,—

And death pays debts, when all is said.

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