Classic Poem

I lay in a rich chamber candle-dim
And nightlong dreamt awake. The ancient winds
Like remote music made a dusk of sound:

Viols throbbing out some earth-impassioned hymn
From halls of kingly revels and bright sins —
Far voices as of love-mad women, crowned,

Star-gemmed Despairs, the queens of legend lands,
Seated within the gateways of their towers,
Eyes full of smiles forgotten, unfelt tears

Uncounted falling in their idle hands
Which whitely drooped upon their laps like flowers.
Anteia's sisters, these, and Phaedra's feres.

Methought their murmurs gathered in the night,
And all these wretched queens of ancient care
Joined faintly their involuntary moan,

Till pale Aurora passioned toward the light,
Slight Cynthia fled adown her brightening stair,
And day brought other worlds to rule my own.