Classic Poem

Ye whose lost voices, echoing in this rhyme,
My tongue usurps, forgive if I have erred.
Not as ye uttered, but as I have heard,
I spell your meanings in an evil time.
Mock not the hope your conference sublime
Hath in the vigils of an exile stirred,
But let the music of my woven word
Waft to your shades the sweetness of your prime.
For ye have passed beyond the gate of day
Into the twilight of a paler morn,
And hidden beauty from the world, and shorn
The mortal eye of its supernal ray.
Take, till I come, the homage of my lay,
Nor hold the pilgrim of your night in scorn.