Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Castle Building

You may smile at the fanciful structures I rear,
    And say, that my castles are built but on sand;
Like bubbles, that on the blue waters appear,
    That sparkle, invite, and then sink from the hand.

When my spirit is tracing some bright and new sphere,
    As light as the moment, when joy gave it birth;
Would you stop her gay pinion, and chain her down here
    To reality's region—a plodder on earth?

Tho' time, as its shadows and sorrows pass by,
    Darkens many a tint, fancy brighten'd in vain;
Their shade it will flit, like the clouds o'er the sky,
    And the picture be colour'd as gaily again.

Unlike the Pactolus, which glisten'd of old,
    But whose waves have exhausted their own brilliant store;
The fountain of hope is still sparkling with gold,
    And often applied to, but proffers the more.