Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: Xi

Beyond her sat a second monster. She In shape and sense was undisguisedly real, An ox--eyed queen of full--fed majesty And giant height and comeliness ideal. She too her tale related, as was due, In measured tones, her age, her birth, her name, Bourgeois her parents, friends of order too, And good Imperialists of honest fame, Her age eighteen, her height seven feet, her waist An ell and more in its circumference, Her leg above the knee, and where was placed Its point of full development. . . The sense Of the rest I lost, for laughing half aloud Again a woman touched me in the crowd.