Classic Poem

*****

Thence , up the sea-green floor, among the stems
Of mighty columns whose unmeasured shades
From aisle to aisle, unheeded in the sun,
Moved without sound, I, following all alone
A strange desire that drew me like a hand,
Came unawares upon the Queen.
She sat
In a great silence, which her beauty fill'd
Full to the heart of it, on a black chair
Mail'd all about with sullen gems, and crusts
Of sultry blazonry. Her face was bow'd,
A pause of slumbrous beauty, o'er the light
Of some delicious thought new-risen above
The deeps of passion. Round her stately head
A single circlet of the red gold fine
Burn'd free, from which, on either side, stream'd down
Twilights of her soft hair, from neck to foot.
Green was her kirtle as the emerolde is,
And stiff from hem to hem with seams of stones
Beyond all value; which, from left to right
Disparting, half reveal'd the snowy gleam
Of a white robe of spotless samyte pure.
And from the soft repression of her zone,
Which, like a light hand on a lutestring, press'd
Harmony from its touch, flow'd warmly back
The bounteous outlines of a glowing grace,
Nor yet outflow'd sweet laws of loveliness.

Then did I feel as one who, much perplext,
Led by strange legends and the light of stars
Over long regions of the midnight sand
Beyond the red tract of the Pyramids,
Is suddenly drawn to look upon the sky
From sense of unfamiliar light, and sees,
Reveal'd against the constellated cope,
The Great Cross of the South.
The chamber round
Was dropt with arras green; and I could hear,
In courts far off, a minstrel praising May,
Who sang ... Si douce, si douce est la Margarite!
To a faint lute. Upon the window-sill,
Hard by a latoun bowl that blazed i' the sun,
Perch'd a strange fowl, a Falcon Perigrine;
With all his feathers puft for pride, and all
His courage glittering outward in his eye;
For he had flown from far, athwart strange lands,
And o'er the light of many a setting sun,
Lured by his love (such sovereignty of old
Had Beauty in all courts of Christendom!)
To look into the great eyes of the Queen.