drenched to the stars With fragrance of flowering grape Where the hills hunch up from the plain To the purple dark ridges that sweep Towards the flowery-pale peaks and the snow.

 Faint as the peaks in the glister of starlight, A figure on a silver-tinkling snow-white mule Climbs the steeply twining stony road Through murmuring vineyards to the gate That gaps with black the wan starlight.

The watchman on his three-legged stool Drowses in his beard, dreams He is a boy walking with strong strides Of slender thighs down a wet road,       Where flakes of violet-colored April sky Have brimmed the many puddles till the road Is as a tattered path across another sky.

 The watchman on his three-legged stool, Sits snoring in his beard; His dream is full of flowers massed in meadowland, Of larks and thrushes singing in the dawn, Of touch of women's lips and twining hands, And madness of the sprouting spring ... His ears a-sudden ring with the shrill cry:       Open watchman of the gate, It is I, the Cyprian.

 —It is ruled by the burghers of this town Of Asolo, that from sundown       To dawn no stranger shall come in, Be he even emperor, or doge's kin.       —Open, watchman of the gate, It is I, the Cyprian.

—Much scandal has been made of late By wandering women in this town. The laws forbid the opening of the gate Till next day once the sun is down.       —Watchman know that I who wait Am Queen of Jerusalem, Queen Of Cypress, Lady of Asolo, friend Of the Doge and the Venetian State.

 There is a sound of drums, and torches flare Dims the star-swarm, and war-horns' braying Drowns the fiddling of crickets in the wall, Hoofs strike fire on the flinty road, Mules in damasked silk caparisoned Climb in long train, strange shadows in torchlight, The road that winds to the city gate.

 The watchman, fumbling with his keys, Mumbles in his beard:—Had thought She was another Cyprian, strange the dreams That come when one has eaten tripe. The great gates creak and groan, The hinges shriek, and the Queen's white mule Stalks slowly through.

 The watchman, in the shadow of the wall, Looks out with heavy eyes:—Strange, What cavalcade is this that 

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