Classic Poem

As often as I'm with thee, I recall
A drowsy lotos nodding in a pool,
A reverie of ripples, where a cool
Dim tent of bamboo shadows curtains all.
Hard by, a flute-bird joins her " dying fall "
To the low crooning of a lingering breeze,
Humming of slumber and soft Indian ease,
To fold my sleeper in faint, sensuous thrall.
Couched in the comfort of her beauty, fanned
By the deft elves of Queen Mab's retinue,
Like Asultana pillowed on her hand,
Whose dreams Haroun-al-Reschid's realm renew.
Be thou my lotos, thine her trancing gleams,
Thou maker and partaker of my dreams!

Most like a lotos in thy languid air,
Most like a lotos in thy red and white;
Not in an arrogance of gauds bedight, —
Queen by the queenliness of being fair!
Most like the lotos that thy veins prepare
Some subtle potion to enthrall the sense
Of jaded wayfarers, and lift them hence
To bathe in billows of empyrean air.
The dusty Bedouin, alighting down
From his fagged camel at a lotos bath,
Straightway emparadised, his hourl hath,
Forgets the desert and his bandits brown.
I lighted from my camel at thy door
To kiss thee — must I dream for evermore?