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.