I was watching as you flew
Circling in the summer sky;
Round about you thoughts I threw,
Every bit as swift as you,
Every bit as high.
Out of cloud a palace springs,
Domes and minarets and towers,
Bastions, where the trumpet rings
And my topmost turret swings
High about the showers.
You were captain in the skies
Nimble as a darting sword--
Of the company of spies
Who my castle from surprise
Vigilantly ward.
Wheeling, darting, unaware
That you were the warden bold
Of my palace towering there,
Of its battlements of air
And its roofs of gold.
All unheeding trumpet calls
Down you plunged from out the blue;
Warderless the silver wells,
And my airy castle falls
Swifter far than you.
_L. A. G. STRONG_
(_WADHAM_)