QUOTE : CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP<br /><br />The bright mirror I braved: the devil in it<br />Loved me like my soul, my soul:<br />Now that I seek myself in a serpent<br />My smile is fatal.<br /><br />Nile moves in me; my thighs splay<br />Into the squalled Mediterranean;<br />My brain hides in that Abyssinia<br />Lost armies foundered towards.<br /><br />Desert and river unwrinkle again.<br />Seeming to bring them the waters that make drunk<br />Caesar, Pompey, Antony I drank.<br />Now let the snake reign.<br /><br />A half-deity out of Capricorn,<br />This rigid Augustus mounts<br />With his sword virginal indeed; and has shorn<br />Summarily the moon-horned river<br /><br />From my bed. May the moon<br />Ruin him with virginity! Drink me, now, whole<br />With coiled Egypt's past; then from my delta<br />Swim like a fish toward Rome.