The stone-gray roses by the desert's rim
Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand,
Gray are the broken walls of Khangavar
That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are
Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon.

Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet
Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air —
Some scent may linger of that ancient time,
Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme,
The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there.

A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow,
In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun,
With long, dark lashes and small delicate hands:
To kiss her mouth men sighed in many lands
Until in shifting sand they buried her.

And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon
And never shake the frail Tree's lightest leaves,
And moonlight roses perfume the pale Dawn
Until the scarlet life from her lips drawn
Gathers its shattered beauty in the sky.