ire?
Ah! terrible kiss!
[_The flame flashes up._
Now hear it, hear it!
A hiss as from mighty serpents,
The dry, licking, wicked tongues!
Wouldst thou sting the earth to death?
What a career!
To clasp and devour and kill!
To dance over the world as a frenzied dancer
With whirling skirts of world-wide flame!
[_The flame flashes up._
Blaze! Blaze!
Or art thou madness visible,
Insanity seizing the rolling heavens.
[_He points up._
Thou, Thou, didst create the world
In the stars innumerably smiling.
Thou art life, thou art God, thou art I!
[_The flame flashes up._
Mother! Mother!
This is thy deed.
Hist! Hist! can you not see her
Stealing with lighted torch?
She makes no sound, she hath a spirit's tread.
Hast thou sated thy vengeance yet?
Art thou appeased?
[_The flame flashes up._
Be satisfied with nothing but the world,
The world alone is fuel for thee.
Mother!
[_The flame flashes up._
And I! See what a fire I have given thee,
Rome for a funeral couch!
Had Achilles a pyre like to this
Or had Patroclus?
Had they mourners such as I give to thee,
Bereaved mothers and babes?
Now let the wailing cease from thy tomb,
Here is a mightier wail!
Now let the haunting trumpet be dumb!

ACTE. Nero!

NERO. Blaze! Rage! Blaze!
[_The flame flashes up more fervently._
For now am I free of thy blood,
I have appeased and atoned,
Have atoned with cries, with crashings, and with flaming.
Thy blood is no more on my head;
I am purged, I am cleansed;
I have given thee flaming Rome for the bed of thy death!
O Agrippina!

[_He falls in a swoon_--ACTE _runs towards him._

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NERO***

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