Vashti’s Law by Geoffrey Reiter

Does Xerxes see me only as a churl,

A well-dressed servant girl,

To leap at his command?

Am I a work of art without a stand,

For viewing pleasure at his beck of hand?

The Empire’s rightful queen,

Employed for nothing else but to be seen!

I’ll be no party to my honor’s death;

I smell ale on his breath

And hear the Siren charms

Of laughing women draped across his arms.

I’d rather toil away on cropless farms

Than be one who supplies

A sight for prurient and drunken eyes.

Let this kingdom’s due process run its course,

Let my husband grow hoarse

In shouting out his writs.

There’s much decay that Persia’s law permits;

Let the criers shout it from their turrets.

It shan’t on my soul gnaw;

From this day forth, I follow Vashti’s law!