The noble queen woke from dreams of cinnamon and saffron to find a choir of poets singing around her bed.

“O Noble Queen, who bright of days
As whispering winds,
As the waters that spring from the rock
As the dunes driven before a storm –“

She tuned them out, stuffed her head back under the pillow.
The poets finished their poem, murmured together like doves in their cotes, like patient nuns.
She bleared her eyes at the window.
The sky was grey, and cloudless, and starless, and sunless.
It was the twilight of the unrisen sun.

The noble queen groaned.

“It is the Day of Days,” said the First Poet.
“O Noble Queen!” chanted the poetasters.
“Rise, O Light Of The Morning, and be anointed with precious oils, be bedecked in regal finery, be scented and pomaded!”
“O Noble Queen!”

She shook her head and smiled at the poets. They meant well, anyway.