Once in a dream I wandered down a plain Beyond the hanging gardens; far behind, Babylon glimmered like a city slain, And even as I looked I heard the wind Gather its thunders, saw the temples fall, The great walls shatter from the bolts of fate, The statues crumble and the seneschal Fall on his sword before the mighty gate. And in my dream when chaos was no more, Before the vultures fell on the abyss, I saw a woman weeping by a door And heard her cry of anguish as I sped, And knew her for the Queen Semiramis Because of the white doves about her head. |