Classic Poem

I RODE the desert spaces
That billowed vast and wide,
And immemorial faces
Came down the twilight-tide;
I crouched the blue night under,—
The planet-sown abyss,—
Held by the haunting wonder
Of great Semiramis.

All others failed and faded,
But she shone as of old,
Her purple hair thick-braided
With dull Assyrian gold;
Her robes had woven glories
Diaphanous but bright;
Her red lips hinted stories
Of manifold delight.

Her deep eyes kept repeating
Runes whereof love was theme;
Her round arms reached entreating
To ecstasies of dream;
Then burst the moon in flower,
The vision slipped away,
But I had for an hour
Been king in Nineveh!