Classic Poem

Even judged by dreams which are
But phantasmal parodies
Of my life; and hollower
Than the glory of the skies
Which the seven maids maintain,
Heavenly sisters of the rain,

I am true. If you came in
To the Liberties of Sleep
Where, as proud as Saladin,
A preposterous state I keep;
Would you ever guess each bride
Was your own self multiplied?

Where, by water-lilies stilled,
Some forgotten old canal
Mirrors deep a window-silled
Maiden in a castle wall,
You again: but no disguise
Warms your willow-greenish eyes.

To a place where engineers
Coax a stream to climb a hill
And a marble reappears
Mountain-melted snowy still
Water, as before the Moor
Laid it on his rose-leaf floor,

I am banished beyond time,
To my faith an infidel;
Ruling in another clime
Devotees who serve me well,
Moving as they seek my love
Hips that like twin melons move.

With my boat's three-cornered sail
Shaped as is a rose's thorn,
While the morning yet is pale,
Gently filling, I am borne,
Where ... it is not every man's
Luck to meet Corinthians.

Aphrodite's house is there;
She knows what you drove me to.
The most pleasant form of prayer
That a worshipper can do
Was enjoined. But nothing cures
Love the loved one still abjures.