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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Harriet Monroe

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

In the Louvre

Harriet Monroe

From “Poems of Travel”

QUEEN KAROMANA, slim you stand,

In bronze with little flecks of gold—

Queen Karomana.

O royal lady, lift your hand,

Shatter the stone museum cold,

Queen Karomana.

The wide Nile sleeps, the desert stings

With color. Shake your tresses free,

Queen Karomana!

The sleepy lotus shines and swings—

Loose your bound limbs and sail with me

In a smooth shallop to the sea,

Queen Karomana!

Queen Karomana, still so mute,

So delicate, yet cold as snow,

Queen Karomana!

An ice-wind, boldly resolute,

Rippled your thin robe long ago,

And froze you into bronze—I know—

But left your garment’s flecks of gold

And the slim grace men loved of old,

Queen Karomana.