Arria

“ PÆTUS, my master sends death, but thereto addeth this grace,-
Choose thou the hour and the hand that shall drive the steel to its place.”
Thus spake a Dacian slave, noiseless retiring apace.
Blanched were the lips of Arria.

Anon their rich color returned in a threefold resurgent wave.
“ Death must thou have, O my dearest, yet not by the hand of a slave!
Lordly give back to the gods the lordly gift that they gave ! ”
Smiled the red lips of Arria.

(Mark! not the starveling of life, not the scorner, is freest from fear;
Hearts richest in love are foremost to rush on the foeman’s spear;
And the keen accolade that maketh immortal falls sacred and dear
As the kiss from the lips of Arria.)

And yet mused the knight; for who would not stay, though but for a span,
Ere he pass to the untried gods this life in the known frame of man?
So strong through his veins the impact of years to be canceled yet ran,—
And so sweet were the lips of Arria!

“ Now death or craven delaying! ” clear rang her silvery note.
Thou wouldst not falter in choice, thou ever to honor devote ! ”
As throbs the soft breast of a startled dove, so throbbed her soft throat,
Yet firm the red lips of Arria.

With the dower of her beauty upon her she stood in his wavering sight;
A true Roman wife, he beheld her, the peer of a true Roman knight.
“ Hast thou lost the old way, O my lord, dost thou need one to set thee aright ?”
Still smiled the red lips of Arria.

And, smiling, she laid her warm hand on the steel true-tempered and cold.
“ This were the way !" (She has driven the point through her tunic’s white fold!)
“ This is the way, — none other; but, Rictus, it hurts not — behold!” —
And hushed were the lips of Arria.

Oh, horror! oh, pity! oh, love! But now is no moment to weep;
Let the bright death, from her heart to his own, importunate leap;
Ay, for it hurts not when life flitteth forth from its cabinet deep, —
Forth to the soul of Arria!

One touch of her consecrate lips, one instant above her he stands;
In the next he hath caught the life-drinking blade in his two firm hands.
He hath tried the old way,—the old way that ever mocked tyrannous bands,—
Now forth to the soul of Arria!