Awaits the hour of victory.

In silence, wheels the night,

Star-marshalled, over dreaming Babylon;

And none in all the sleeping city stirs,

Save the cloaked sentries on the outer walls

Who tread out patience 'twixt the gates of brass,

Numb with scarce-baffled slumber,

Or, maybe, some unsleeping priest of Bel,

A lonely warder of eternity,

Who watches on the temple's seventh stage,

With the unslumbering gods.

Yet, may not she, the Queen,

Whose beauty, slaying my body,

Brings my soul to immortal birth,

Although she does not know

Of my last vigil on the peak of life--

Yet, may not she awaken, troubled

By strange, bewildering dreams,

With heart a little fearful of the dawn

Of day, yet unrevealed?

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