All night the Queen In fever burned; A dream returned Long ago seen: A dream of ships, Of one who came Out of a flame And cried her name And kissed her lips. Somewhere in the dawn Someone's singing: "Lo! what gifts love's hands are bringing!" Jet-black, the palms like sculptured fountains loomed Above the lovers; one star blazed all night. Beyond the river was the sea that boomed. Their barge was lit with lightnings of delight. Of this, the good Aeneas too had dreamed While the unshaken towers of Ilium gleamed. Ah! cry the sailors, "whom we loved must wait. There's no turning back from the open track to the gates of fate." The cicadas drone; Desert winds blow As oarsmen row Their Queen alone Down the river. Alone, she cried Alone! to the tide. And the sea replied Forever! La, croon the Women, nimbly weaving, "Whose heart do we hear grieving?" Months bring all wanderings to a close. The fleet years flee; Aeneas wisely wed, Often, when wind and sea strike mighty blows, Wakening from dreams half ecstasy, half dread, That come upon him from another life, Touches the calm breast of his sleeping wife. Hum, the Night Watch mutters, leaning on his spear, "'Tis a strange world to be in and to have no fear." The sea at last Brings pain to end. The desert vast Becomes her friend. Her people fear it: "The Queen," they say, "Grows day by day Paler, but still gay-- As a spirit." Oh, they murmur, "Queen Dido goes away To where the dark river runs, sunless and gray." A HYMN TO DIONYSUS IN SPRING Yellow the sands of the shores of Elis, and over the creaming Foam-flakes that flutter and curl on the edge of the dreaming Mediterranean, Jupiter arches his azure dome. Here to the somnolent sands the Aeolian women have come, The dreamers, all languid with silence of spring-tide dreaming, And they stand with their hair unbound and their feet in the foam. The heart of the morning beats with a swooning, amorous beating, And the nymph-cool waters and brazen sunshine meeting, Mingle where indolent spring-tide ripples shimmer and burn; Out to the dim horizon the eyes of the dreamers yearn, And like flutes are the low, soft voices that chant thus, entreating The God, Dionysus, to rise from the sea and return. "Bitter thy roving hath been, O Hunter, and stricken with madness, And thy winter frenzy hath torn us with torment of sadness-- Horror of blood in the mouth and of murderous lusts that bring Shadows a-couch in the forest from under us shuddering. We are sick of the feverish nights that have stolen our gladness-- Ah! we are weary of winter and fain of the Spring!"