Preludes 1921-1922

There is a castle on a hill,
So far into the sky,
That birds that from the valley-beds
Up to the turrets fly,
Climbing towards the sun can feel
The clouds go tumbling by.

But always far above the clouds
The sun is shining there,
It shines for ever on those walls;
And the great boughs that bear
Harvests of never fading fruit
Are golden everywhere.

Who journeys to that castled crest
Finds, with his journey done,
All ages and all colours in
Cascades of light that run
Over the broad weirs of the air
For ever from the sun.

Two things are silver: flower of plum
When April yet is cold;
And willowed floods that of the moon
Quiet leases hold.
That castle in the sky alone
Of living things is gold.

Between unfathomable blue
And the bright belts of green,
Midway the plains of heaven and earth,
Rock-borne it stands between
Woods and the sky, a golden world
Where only gold is seen.

Old carvers in the stone have cut
Forests and wraths and herds,
And these are gold: the dials tell
The sun in golden words;
The very jackdaws, from the towers
Wheeling, are golden birds.

The minting of the sun is on
The gravel everywhere,
The yellow walls are fleeces washed
In pools of sunny air,
That coming to that castle place
All men are Jasons there.

Trancelike to stand upon that hill
When the deep summer sings,
Gold-clad, gold-hearted, and gold-voiced,
And sings and sings and sings,
Is as to wait a rising world
In flight of golden wings.

And I have walked with love that way,
And on that golden crest
The sun was happy for my love,
For she is golden-tressed.
Red gold, that of all golden things
The great sun marks for best.

O golden castle of the sky
Hereafter gold can be
Only your image when the sun
Transfigured her for me,
Till she was golden-clouded Jove,
And I her Danae.

Hereafter in the chambered night
When linked love is told,
One thought shall spare to climb that hill
Into the sunbright fold,
For a great summer noon when love
Was gold, and gold, and gold.