For one great Queen who sits in majesty,
Untouched, austere, upon a golden throne,
The like whose loveliness was never known
Of ebony and rose and ivory,—
For her you weave a broidered tapestry,
Rife with rich stains of every color-tone
Inwrought; while she immovable as stone
But watches pitiless and silently.
Yet, should this Queen of Beauty lift her arm
And take your broidered web,— ah, then the prize,
The vast reward of all the scars and shame,
For in the moment as a mystic charm
The cloth is changed to porphyry, and lies
Forever on her breast a frozen flame!