“There is a land far, far away from yours.
And there the stars are thrice as bright as these.
And there the nightingale strange music pours
All day out of the hearts of myrtle trees.
There the voice of the cuckoo sounds never forlorn
As you hear it far off thro' the deep purple valleys.
And the firefly dances by night in the corn
And the little round owls in the long cypress alleys
Whoop for joy when the moon is born.
There ripen the olive and the tulip tree.
And in the sun broadens the green prickly pear.
And the bright galingales in the grass you may see.
And the vine, with her royal blue globes, dwelleth there,
Climbing and hanging deliciously
By every doorway and lone latticed chamber,
Where the damselfly flits, and the heavy brown bee
Hums alone, and the quick lizards rustle and clamber.
And all things, there, live and rejoice together,
From the frail peach-blossom that first appears
When birds are about in the blue summer weather,
To the oak that has lived through his eight hundred years.
And the castles are built on the hills, not the plains.
(And the wild windflowers burn about in the courts there)
They are white and undrench'd by the grey winter rains.
And the swallows, and all things, are blithe at their sports there.
O for one moment, at sunset, to stand
Far, far away, in that dear distant land
Whence they bore her—the loveliest lady that ever
Crost the bleak ocean. Oh nevermore, never,
Shall she stand with her feet in the warm dry grasses
Where the faint balm-heaping breeze heavily passes,
And the white lotus-flower leans lone on the river!”