Gold

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.