[A] Vashti means “_Beautiful Woman_;” Esther means “_A Star_.”
I stand like an image of brass, I, Vashti, in sight of such men! No, sooner, a thousand times sooner, the mouth of the lioness’ den, When she’s fiercest with hunger and love for the hungry young lions that tear Her breasts with sharp, innocent teeth, I would enter, aye, sooner than there!
Did he love me, or is he, too, though the King, but a brute like the rest? I have seen him in wine, and I fancied ’twas then that he loved me the best; Though I think I would rather have one sweet, passionate word from the heart Than a year of caresses that may with the wine that creates them depart.
But ever before, in his wine, towards me he shewed honour and grace,-- He was King, I was Queen, and those nobles he made them remember their place; But now all is changed: I am vile, they are honoured, they push me aside,-- A butt for Memucan, and Shethar, and Meres, gone mad in their pride!
Shall I faint? shall I pine? shall I sicken and die for the loss of his love? Not I; I am queen of myself, though the stars fall from heaven above-- The stars! ha! the torment is there, for my light is put out by a _Star_, That has dazzled the eyes of the King and his Court and his Captains of War.
He was lonely, they say, and he looked, as he sat like a ghost at his wine, On the couch by his side, where, of yore, his Beautiful used to recline. But the King is a slave to his pride, to his oath, and the laws of the Medes, And he cannot call Vashti again, though his poor heart is wounded and bleeds.
So they ransacked the land for a wife, while the King thought of me all the while-- I can see him, this moment, with eyes that are lost for the loss of a smile, Gazing dreamily on as each maiden is temptingly passed in review, While the love in his heart is awake with the thought of a face that he knew!
Then _she_ came, when his heart was grown weary with loving the dream of the past! She is fair--I could curse her for that, if I thought that this passion would last! But, e’en if it last, all the love is for me, and, through good and through ill, The King shall remember his Vashti, shall think of his Beautiful still.
Oh! the day is a weary burden, the night is a restless strife,-- I am sick to the very heart of my soul of this life--this death in life! Oh! that the glorious, changeless sun would draw me up in his might, And quench my dreariness in the flood of his everlasting light!