My Castles In Spain Poem by Silas Weir Mitchell

Ho, joyous friend with beard of brown!
A half-hour back 't was gray;
A half-hour back you wore a frown,
But now the world looks gay.
For here the mirror's courtly grace
Cheats you with a youthful face,
And here the poet clock of time
Each happy minute counts in rhyme;
And here the roses never die,
And 'Yes' is here Love's sole reply.
Gladder land can no man gain
Than my mystic realm of Spain.
Come with me, for I am one
Hidalgo-born of Aragon;
I will show you why I choose
Thus to live in Andalouse.
Across the terrace, up the stair,
Our steps shall wander to and fro
Where pensive stand the statues fair,
And murmur songs of long ago.
Or will you see my pictures old,
The landscapes hung for my delight
In window-frames of fretted gold,
Where, glowing, shines in color bright
That Claude of mine at full of noon,
When the ripe, eager blood of June
Stirs bird and leaf, and everywhere
The world is one gay love-affair?
Or shall we linger, looking west,
Just when my Turner 's at its best,
To watch the cold stars, one by one,
Crawl to the embers of the sun,
Whilst all the gray sierra snows
Are ruddy with the twilight rose?
Believe me, artists there are none
Like those of mine in Aragon;
Nor painter would I care to choose
Beside the sun of Andalouse.
Or shall we part the shining leaves
Down drooping from the vine-clad eaves,
And see, amidst the sombre pines,
The maiden take a shameless kiss?
Around his neck her white arm twines,
And still is sweet their changeless bliss.
I know she cannot aught refuse,
For that 's the law in Andalouse,
And ever 'neath this happy sun
There is no sin in Aragon.
Or shall we cast yon casement wide,
And see the knights before us ride,
The charging Cid, the Moors that flee?
Grim although the battles be
That through my window-frames I see,
No death is there, nor any pain,
Because on my estates in Spain
All passions gaily run their course
But lack the shadow-fiend remorse.
Something 't is to make one vain
Thus to be grandee of Spain;
For the wine of Andalouse
All the world a man might lose,
Could he see what rosy shapes
Trample out my Spanish grapes,
Know how pink the feet that bruise
My gold-green grapes of Andalouse.
Ah, but if you 're not a don,
Drink no wine of Aragon.
Dreamland loves and elfin flavors,
Gay romances, fairy favors,
Moonlit mists and glad confusions,
Youth's brief mystery of delusions,
Racing, chasing, haunt the brain
Of him who drinks this wine of Spain.
Where the quarterings were won
That make of me a Spanish don
No one asks in Aragon.
Never blood of Bourbon grew
So magnificently blue;
Blood have I that once was Dante's;
Kinsman am I of Cervantes.
Come and see what nobles fine
Make my proud ancestral line:
In my gallery set apart,
Lo where art interprets art.
Yes, you needs must like it well,—
Shakespeare's face by Raphael.
Ah, 't is very nobly done,
But that's the air of Aragon.
He left me that which till life ends
Is surely mine,—the best of friends;
And chiefly one, if you would know,
I love of all, Mercutio.
Velasquez? Ay, he knew a man,
And well he drew my Puritan,
With eyes too full of heaven's light
To dream our day as aught but night.
If my soul stirs swift at wrong,
This sire made that instinct strong.
Da Vinci touched with love the face
That keeps for me young Surrey's grace.
And that,—ah, that is one to like,
My kinsman Sidney, by Vandyke.
Some words he gave, of which bereft
My life were poorer. There, to left
Are they whose rills of English song
Unto my royal blood belong.
For poet, painter, priest, and lay
Went to make my Spanish clay;
And here away in Andalouse,
Whatever mood my soul may choose,
The poet's joy, the soldier's force,
Finds for me its parent source
Where, along the pictured wall,
Hero voices on me call,
With the falling of the dews,
In Aragon or Andalouse,
When the mystic shadows troop,
When my fairy flowers droop,
And the joyous day is done!
In Andalouse or Aragon.
;;;;
The Quaker Lady
'MID drab and gray of moldered leaves,
The spoil of last October,
I see the Quaker lady stand
In dainty garb and sober.

No speech has she for praise or prayer,.
No blushes, as I claim
To know what gentle whisper gave
Her prettiness a name.

The wizard stillness of the hour
My fancy aids: again
Return the days of hoop and hood
And tranquil William Penn.

I see a maid amid the wood
Demurely calm and meek,
Or troubled by the mob of curls
That riots on her cheek.

Her eyes are blue, her cheeks are red,—
Gay colors for a Friend,—
And Nature with her mocking rouge
Stands by a blush to lend.

The gown that holds her rosy grace
Is truly of the oddest;
And wildly leaps her tender heart
Beneath the kerchief modest.

It must have been the poet Love
Who, while she slyly listened,
Divined the maiden in the flower,
And thus her semblance christened.

Was he a proper Quaker lad
In suit of simple gray?
What fortune had his venturous speech,
And was it 'yea' or 'nay'?

And if indeed she murmured 'yea,'
And throbbed with worldly bliss,
I wonder if in such a case
Do Quakers really kiss?

Or was it some love-wildered beau
Of old colonial days,
With clouded cane and broidered coat,
And very artful ways?

And did he whisper through her curls
Some wicked, pleasant vow,
And swear no courtly dame had words
As sweet as 'thee' and 'thou'?

Or did he praise her dimpled chin
In eager song or sonnet,
And find a merry way to cheat
Her kiss-defying bonnet?

And sang he then in verses gay,
Amid this forest shady,
The dainty flower at her feet
Was like his Quaker lady?

And did she pine in English fogs,
Or was his love enough?
And did she learn to sport the fan,
And use the patch and puff?

Alas! perhaps she played quadrille,
And, naughty grown and older,
Was pleased to show a dainty neck
Above a snowy shoulder.

But sometimes in the spring, I think,
She saw, as in a dream,
The meeting-house, the home sedate,
The Schuylkill's quiet stream;

And sometimes in the minuet's pause
Her heart went wide afield
To where, amid the woods of May,
A blush its love revealed.

Till far away from court and king
And powder and brocade,
The Quaker ladies at her feet
Their quaint obeisance made.