Abisag by Aroslav Vrchlický

King David lay upon a royal couch of cypress wood. From the ceiling / swung huge receptacles carved of bronze, from which the smoke of / burning perfumes rose, and whose dim, wavering light, showed carven / cedarn walls and a ceiling starred with plaques of gold.

The night was warm and windless. From the city from time to time one / could hear the measured tread of watchmen, and the clang of swords; / from the vineyards that swept about Jerusalem like a girdle of green, / came the voices of men who guarded the wine. The moon, resembling a / warrior's shield of gold, reflected itself in the mirror of the flat / roofs and flung fleeting, ghostly shadows about the twelve great gates / of the city. The light fell upon the city wall, the purification pool, / gardens filled with bee hives, long alleys of sycamore trees, of palm / and fig trees. It fell upon tethered camels becoming restless at / approach of day. It saw its golden surface in deep cisterns. It shone / upon graves in which the bones of ancestors rested under the curse or / the blessing of the sons of Israel. Night swept across the world of / space like a prodigious face across the mind of the dreaming prophet.