Vashti

I am Vashti, the boldest of queens,
Pretty at forty, as ever in my 'teens.
Everybody feared me, called me Queen of Spades,
Most of all my slaves, pretty Jewish maids.
How I drove them crazy, worked them to the bone,
I had no pity for them, my heart was made of stone.
The king made a feast, for hundred eighty days,
Till he lay in the gutter, his mind in a daze.
His drunken guests he promised, yea, he'd sworn,
To make me dance before them, like a slave born!
But I got a pimple on my nose, and water in my knees,
How could I entertain them with the greatest of ease?
So the foolish king many tears did shed
As he led me to the scaffold to cut off my pretty head.