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THE AGONY OF AN EMPRESS 507
CHAPTER LIX
THE AGONY OF AN EMPRESS
'
Satiety
And sloth, poor counterfeits of thee,
Mock the tired worlding. Idle Hope
And dire Remembrance interlope,
And vex the feverish slumbers of the mind :
The bubble .floats before ; the spectre stalks behind.'
COLERIDGE, Ode to Tranquillity.
IN one of the most enchanting rooms of the Golden Palace,
surrounded by every object of beauty and splendour which
the wealth of kingdoms could supply, sat Poppsea, miserable
in heart with a misery which nothing could alleviate no
luxury of the present, no memory of the past, no hope of the
future. Like Agrippina, like Seneca, like Nero, she had been
'cursed with every granted prayer.' Nothing which this
world could give was left for her to attain. Of the honours
which overpower, of the riches which clog, of the pleasures
which inflame the soul, she had unbounded experience. They
had left her heart weary and her life in ashes, and she had
never dreamed of the secret which had enabled so many thousands
of humble Christians, whom she would have regarded
as the dust beneath her feet, to find exaltation in abasement,
wealth in penury, and joy in tribulation.
She was Empress she was
; Augusta she was mother of
;
an infant who had been deified ;
her smile meant prosperity,
her frown was death. Of what avail was it all ? Could this
awful power, could those inestimable gems, could the gorgeousness
of her Golden House fill up the void in a heart
numbed by satiety and chilled by despair? What had she to
aim at ? Her enemies had been swept out of her path.
What had she left to hope for ? There was no object of
but what
earthly wishes which she had not attained. Ah !
work worth doing could she find to do in order to fill
up the