Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/431

AMAVI This picture lingers; still she seems to me

The fair young angel of my infancy.

AMAVI


 * and in the morning sky,

A magic castle upward grew!

Cloud-haunted turrets pointing high

Forever to the dreamy blue;

Bright fountains leaping through and through

The golden sunshine; on the air

Gay banners streaming;—never drew

Painter or poet scene more fair.

And in that castle I would live,

And in that castle I would die;

And there, in curtained bowers, would give

Heart-warm responses, sigh for sigh;

There, when but one sweet face was nigh,

The hours should lightly move along,

And ripple, as they glided by,

Like stanzas of an antique song.

O foolish heart! O young romance,

That faded with the noonday sun!

Alas, for gentle dalliance,

For life-long pleasures never won!

O for a season dead and gone!

A wizard time, which then did seem

Only a prelude, leading on

To sweeter portions of the dream.

She died,—nor wore my orange flowers:—

No longer, in the morning sky,

That magic castle lifts its towers

Which shone, awhile, so lustrously. 401