My fingers ran among the tassels faded...

My fingers ran among the tassels faded;

My playmates moved in arrases brocaded;

I slept beside the canopied and shaded

Beds of forgotten kings.

I wandered shoeless in the galleries;

I contemplated long the tapestries,

And loved the ladies for their histories

And hands with many rings.

Beneath an oriel window facing south

Through which the unniggard sun poured morning streams,

I daily stood and laughing drank the beams,

And, catching fistfuls, pressed them in my mouth.

This I remember, and the carven oak,

The long and polished floors, the many stairs,

Th’ heraldic windows, and the velvet chairs,

And portraits that I knew so well, they almost spoke.