Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich / [by Thomas Bailey Aldrich] [electronic text]

CASTLES.

THERE is a picture in my brain That only fades to come again— The sunlight, through a veil of rain To leeward, gilding A narrow stretch of brown sea-sand, A lighthouse half a league from land, And two young lovers, hand in hand, A castle-building.

Upon the budded apple-trees The robins sing by twos and threes, And ever, at the faintest breeze, Down-drops a blossom; And ever would that lover be The wind that robs the burgeoned tree, And lifts the soft tress daintily On Beauty's bosom.

Ah, graybeard, what a happy thing It was, when life was in its spring, To peep through love's betrothal ring At fields Elysian, To move and breathe in magic air, To think that all that seems is fair— Ah, ripe young mouth and golden hair, Thou pretty vision!

Well, well, I think not on these two But the old wound breaks out anew, And the old dream, as if 't were true, In my heart nestles; Then tears come welling to my eyes, For yonder, all in saintly guise, As 't were, a sweet dead woman lies Upon the trestles.