Classic Poem

Once amid sleep I saw the twelve sweet Hours
Go lightly along, gay sisters, hand in hand,
Some with gold flexuous hair and faces bland,
Some dusky as night and wearing stars like flowers.
" Ah, lovely! " I murmured, — but the secret powers
Of slumber, issuing an occult command,
Changed these fair wanderers to a mournful band
That moved with earthward brows through leafless bowers.

Then faintly across my dream a voice was borne ...
" The forms you first beheld, so blithe of mien,
Look thus to eyes that hope's warm glory cheers;
While they that walk funereal and forlorn,
Though still the same, by differing eyes are seen
Through shadow of anguish and cold mist of tears. "