Part 13 (1/2)

Day's golden beam greets none and darkness reigns Where hurtling bat-like forms of feathered men Or human-fas.h.i.+oned birds imprisoned flit.

Close and with dust o'erstrewn, the dungeon doors Are held by bolts with gathering mould o'ersealed.

By love distracted, though the queen of love, Pale Ishtar downward flashed toward death's domain, And swift approached these gates of Urugal, Then paused impatient at its portals grim; For love, whose strength no earthly bars restrain, Gives not the key to open Darkness' Doors.

By service from all living men made proud, Ishtar brooked not resistance from the dead.

She called the jailer, then to anger changed The love that sped her on her breathless way, And from her parted lips incontinent Swept speech that made the unyielding warder quail.

”Quick, turnkey of the pit! swing wide these doors, And fling them swiftly open. Tarry not!

For I will pa.s.s, even I will enter in.

Dare no denial, thou, bar not my way, Else will I burst thy bolts and rend thy gates, This lintel shatter else and wreck these doors.

The pent-up dead I else will loose, and lead Back the departed to the lands they left, Else bid the famished dwellers in the pit Rise up to live and eat their fill once more.

Dead myriads then shall burden groaning earth, Sore tasked without them by her living throngs.”

Love's mistress, mastered by strong hate, The warder heard, and wondered first, then feared The angered G.o.ddess Ishtar what she spake, Then answering said to Ishtar's wrathful might: ”O princess, stay thy hand; rend not the door, But tarry here, while unto Ninkigal I go, and tell thy glorious name to her.”

ISHTAR'S LAMENT.