MY CASTLE IN SPAIN.

There was never a castle seen

So fair as mine in Spain:

It stands embowered in green,

Crowning the gentle slope

Of a hill by the Xenil's shore

And at eve its shade flaunts o'er

The storied Vega plain,

And its towers are hid in the mists of Hope;

And I toil through years of pain

Its glimmering gates to gain.

In visions wild and sweet

Sometimes its courts I greet:

Sometimes in joy its shining halls

I tread with favoured feet;

But never my eyes in the light of day

Were blest with its ivied walls,

Where the marble white and the granite gray

Turn gold alike when the sunbeams play,

When the soft day dimly falls.

I know in its dusky rooms

Are treasures rich and rare;

The spoil of Eastern looms,

And whatever of bright and fair

Painters divine have caught and won

From the vault of Italy's air:

White gods in Phidian stone

People the haunted glooms;

And the song of immortal singers

Like a fragrant memory lingers,

I know, in the echoing rooms.

But nothing of these, my soul!

Nor castle, nor treasures, nor skies,

Nor the waves of the river that roil

With a cadence faint and sweet

In peace by its marble feet -

Nothing of these is the goal

For which my whole heart sighs.

‘ Tis the pearl gives worth to the shell -

The pearl I would die to gain;

For there does my lady dwell,

My love that I love so well -

The Queen whose gracious reign

Makes glad my castle in Spain.

Her face so pure and fair

Sheds light in the shady places,

And the spell of her girlish graces

Holds charmed the happy air.

A breath of purity

For ever before her flies,

And ill things cease to be

In the glance of her honest eyes.

Around her pathway flutter,

Where her dear feet wander free

In youth's pure majesty,

The wings of the vague desires;

But the thought that love would utter

In reverence expires.

Not yet! not yet shall I see

That face which shines like a star

O'er my storm-swept life afar,

Transfigured with love for me.

Toiling, forgetting, and learning

With labour and vigils and prayers,

Pure heart and resolute will,

At last I shall climb the hill

And breathe the enchanted airs

Where the light of my life is burning

Most lovely and fair and free,

Where alone in her youth and beauty

And bound by her fate's sweet duty,

Unconscious she waits for me.