Yea, in the town behind her, flaring Shushan,
She heard Man, meaning to adore himself,
Throned on the wealth of earth as God in heaven,
And making music of his glorying thought,
Merely betray the mastery of his blood,
His sexual heart, his main idolatry,--
Woman, and his lust to devour her beauty,
Himself devoured ceaselessly by her beauty.
And well she knew, to herself bitterly smiling,
How the King seated amid his fellow-kings
Devised his grievous rage, feeling himself
Insulted in his dearest mind, his rule
Over the precious pleasure of his women
Wounded: how the man's wrath would hiss and swell
Like gross spittle spat into red-hot coals.
But as the Queen fared through the blinded hour,
Sudden against the darkness of her eyes
There came a wind of light. Crimson it was,
With smokey lightnings braided, in its first
Swift surge into the gloom before her face;
But it began to golden, and became
Astonishingly white. And as she stood
With rigour in her nerves, a mighty shudder
Ravish the light, and in the midst appeared
Vision, a goddess, terrible and kind;
And to the Queen the goddess spoke, in voice
That healed her anger with its quietness.

_Ishtar_.
I am the goddess Ishtar, and thou art