ice. The mocking demons turn to angels with Joseph's
handsome face and crown her with fragrant flowers: the
threat'ning thunders to music sweet as Memmon's matin
hymn or accepted lover's sighs, heard 'neath the harvest
moon,--she is afloat upon a sapphire sea beneath a sunset
sky, the West Wind's musky wing wafting her, whither she
neither knows nor cares.

But the angels and the fragrant flowers, the music sweet as
lover's sighs and the sapphire sea, the sunset sky and
Zephyrus' musky wing are dreams; the blistered lips and
poor bruised bosom, the womanly pride humbled in the
dust and wifely honor wounded unto death--these alone are
real! With an involuntary cry of rage and shame, a cry that
is half a prayer and half a curse--a cry that rings and
reverberates through the great sleepy house like a maniac's
shriek heard at midnight among the tombs--she flings
herself sobbing and moaning upon the marble floor.
The drowsy slave starts up as from a dream, quivering in
every limb like a coward looking upon his death. He tries to
raise the groveling victim of his unbridled lust, but she
beats him back; he pleads for mercy, but she calls him
ungrateful slave, base Hebrew dog and prays all Egypt's
gods to curse her conqueror. There's a rush of feet along
the hall, there's a clash of weapons in the court, and here
and there and everywhere tearful maids are calling to their
mistress, the Sweet One and Beautiful, dear Daughter of
the Dawn, Lily of the Nile, while brawny eunuchs,
barelimbed and black as Hell's own brood, are vowing dire
vengeance even upon the King himself if he has dared to