Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/473

HEBE Had been made to feel, with lash that scored

And eye that cowed them, a snarling hour;—

(They were just in the mood for pleasantry

Of those holidays when saints were thrown

To beasts, and the Romans, entrance-free,

Clapped hands;)—that night, as she stood alone,

Florina, Queen of the Lions, called

Sir Marco toward her, while her hand

Still touched the spring of a door that walled

Her subjects safe within Lion-land.

He came there panting, hot from the ring,

So brave a figure that one might know

Among all his tribe he must be king,—

If in some wild tract you met him so.

You swore it first?" "Have never a doubt!"

And one whim drives another out,"—

You tire me." "Look you, Marco! oh,

I should die if another woman won

Your love,—but would kill you first, you know!"

"Thus!" quoth Florina, and slipped the bolt

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, 443