I feel in me a manifold desire...

I feel in me a manifold desire

From many lands and times and clamouring peoples,

And I the Queen

Of crowding vagabonds,

Ghosts of lost years in seeming fancy dress,

With pathos of torn laces

And broken swords;

Cut-throats and kings and poets

Who have loved me

In visions wild, not knowing

What I was.

In me no end

Even where the last content

Clasps on my head a crown

Of shining endurance —

I slip from all my robes

Into the rags of a tattered romance;

The stars crowd at the window,

Their jealous destiny

Raps at the door —

They bob and wink and leer,

And I must leave the lamplight for the road

To keep strange company.

Farewell and Hail!