The Satrap.

I.

THROUGH all the streets of Sardes went a voice
Of lamentation and of death.

For seven months the famine had prevailed,
And now the evil breath

Of Pestilence. Men thronged the palace gates
With one deep cry

For bread or death, but from the gilded doors
Came no reply.

11.

On his high palace roof the Satrap lay,

Beneath a canopy

Of Tyrian silk; his slaves, with folded hands,
Like statues mute, stood by.

One fair-haired Persian favourite alone

Knelt by his side,

Toyed with her golden bracelet rings

In languid pride.

III.

From incense cups, on slender stems of bronze,

The thin grey smoke arose

Straight through the breathless air, and now the long Long day was near its close.

Beneath him lay, for many a fruitful league,

The Cilbian plain,

Fair meadow lands, and, bathed in sunset light,
The ripening grain.

IV.

The mighty circle of the setting sun

Had reached the farther strand

Of Gentle Hermus, so the slow smooth stream

Lay shining like a band.

Of molten brass. And when the Satrap saw

His kingdom wide.

His heart rejoiced, and to himself he said

These words of pride:

"Sweet is the flatterer's breath, ay, honey-sweet,
The dainty food of kings. What profits it
That I should hear the truth? I know it well;
That all these fawning courtier hounds would sell
My blood to-morrow for an ounce of gold,
An ounce of brass, nor think it cheaply sold.
This fair and gilded snake, so skilled to wreathe
White arms around me, whispering to breathe
Sweet-sounding words, My lord, I love you well,'
She loathes the ground I touch! It once befel
I heard her babbling, while asleep she lay,
Some lover's name in Persia far away.

"What said the Greek word-monger yesterday?
'The unseen gods are strong, and, soon or late,
Give each his due; and mightier than they
The dread unpitying force of law and fate.'
Who are these unseen gods? and am not I

A god? I give the word, and presently

These longed-for golden corn-fields, one by one,

Lie dust and ashes blackening in the sun.

Men know the gods through fear; what more can Zeus, The arch-destroyer, save that he may use

The forked lightning, and the blasting hail?

This very night I'll make the stars grow pale
Against the thousand golden lamps that shine
Around my hall of banquet, and the wine,

Borne round by many a rose-crowned slave, shall flow
Among my silken guests, until their slow

Dull blood, with fire divine, shall warm and glow.
Meanwhile the sound of flutes shall sweeter grow
And still more loud, more passionately sweet;
And beating time with swiftly moving feet,

My red-lipped nymphs shall join the Lydian dance,
With twining arms, and many a wanton glance.

And am not I as great a god as he,
The drunken son of Theban Semele?

"True, Cyrus is a greater god than I,

And with a word can cast me from my throne:
And, year by year, the wretched people ply
His ear for judgment on my tyranny;
But great Persepolis is far, their moan
Sounds faintly in his ears; and kings are prone
To view the crimes of kings with lenient eye."

V.

Thus spoke the Satrap in his pride; but while
The blood-red sunset glow

Still stained the West, a sound of whispering
Went through the courts below.

There came a messenger, all pale and faint
From riding hard,

With letters sealed with Cyrus' hand, and sought
The captain of the guard.

VI.

The captain of the guard broke seal, and read
Without a word:

But in the dead of night, when all was still,
The watchers heard

A sound of stealthy footsteps on the stair.
And when the morning sun arose they found
The Satrap dead,

Stabbed in his sleep; and so another prince
Reigned in his stead.

W. FRANK SMITH,

Ravenna and the Pine-Forest.

THE Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations, and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, which received the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and the mother city a third town sprang up and was called Cæsarea. Time and neglect, the ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature, have destroyed these settlements, and nothing now remains of the three cities but Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravenna stood like modern Venice in the centre of a huge lagune, the fresh waters of the Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the Adriatic round its very walls. The houses of the city were built on piles; canals instead of streets formed the means of communication, and these were always filled with water artificially conducted from the southern estuary of the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass, for the most part under shallow water, but rising at intervals into low islands like the Lido or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice. These islands were celebrated for their fertility: the vines and fig-trees and pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil, watered with constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind and liberal sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and quality surpassed the harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All the conditions of life in old Ravenna seem to have exactly resembled those of modern Venice: the people went about in gondolas, and in the early morning barges laden with fresh frut or meat and vegetables flocked from all quarters to the city of the sea. Water also had to be procured from the neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well at Ravenna was more valuable than a vineyard. Again between the city and the mainland ran a long low causeway all across the lagune, like that on which the trains now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air of Ravenna was remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the case of life that prevailed there, and the security afforded by the situation of the town, rendered it a most desirable retreat for the monarchs of Italy during those troublous times in which the empire nodded to its fall. Honorius retired to its lagunes for safety; Odoacer, who dethroned the last Cæsar of the West, succeeded him; and was in turn supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Ravenna, as we see it now, recalls the peaceful and half Roman rule of the great Gothic king. His palace, his churches, and the mausoleum in which his daughter Amalasuntha laid the hero's bones, have survived the sieges of Belisarius and Astolphus, the conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels of Iconoclasts with the children of the Roman Church, the medieval wars of Italy, the victory of Gaston de Foix, and still stand gorgeous with marbles and mosaies in spite of time and the decay of all around them.