Explore "A New Portrait of Judith of Bethulia" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
She trod the grasses grey with dew, / She hugged the unlikely head; / Avenging where the warrior Jew / Incontinent had fled.
The bearded lips writhed ever more / At this increase of shame -- / Killed by a girl, pretending whore, / Gone scatheless as she came!
His doom yet loathlier that he knew / Hers was no nation-pride, / No high religion snatched and slew / Where he lay stupefied.
Nebuchadnezzar's duke enticed / To pay a megrim's fee? / Assyrian valour sacrificed / For a boudoir dignity?
"Only for this, that some tall knave / Had scorned her welcoming bed, / For this, the assault, the stroke, the grave," / Groaned Holofernes' head.