Classic Poem

Oh, when will you return to thrill these empty rooms?
Sweeping your crimson garments through their ways,
Bringing your feast and festival again,
Sounding the music of those splendid days

When we hung scarf and banner from our windows
Telling our joy to all the passers-by!
I used to touch the stars and moon with reaching,
You lifted up my dreaming hands so high.

Oh, kindle again the lapsing altar lights,
And let the censers swing, the incense burn—
The arching halls are bleak when you have left them,
The echoing rooms are sick for your return;
Grow strange, grow silent, wistful for your coming,
Longing, forlorn and uninhabited,
Again to be content beneath your footsteps;
Listening, for your old, lost, desired tread.