We built a castle in the air, <br />In summer weather, you and I, <br />The wind and sun were in your hair, - <br />Gold hair against a sapphire sky: <br />When Autumn came, with leaves that fly <br />Before the storm, across the plain, <br />You fled from me, with scarce a sigh - <br />My Love returns no more again! <br /> <br />The windy lights of Autumn flare: <br />I watch the moonlit sails go by; <br />I marvel how men toil and fare, <br />The weary business that they ply! <br />Their voyaging is vanity, <br />And fairy gold is all their gain, <br />And all the winds of winter cry, <br />'My Love returns no more again!' <br /> <br />Here, in my castle of Despair, <br />I sit alone with memory; <br />The wind-fed wolf has left his lair, <br />To keep the outcast company. <br />The brooding owl he hoots hard by, <br />The hare shall kindle on thy hearth-stane, <br />The Rhymer's soothest prophecy,-- <br />My Love returns no more again! <br /> <br />ENVOY. <br /> <br />Lady, my home until I die <br />Is here, where youth and hope were slain: <br />They flit, the ghosts of our July, <br />My Love returns no more again!<br /><br />Andrew Lang<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ballade-of-autumn/
