I make great castles in the sky,
The walltops poised a mile high.
Floats too, the mighty cornerstone,
From all the birds and clouds on loan.
And glinting sun atop the spires
Blinds me, but building, striving higher,
I fail to see my project’s end—
A skytop castle’s mere pretend.
This aether’s palace, in my mind
I see, none in the world can find.
A nimbus’ founding’s none at all;
Imagined works are prone to fall.
So I build castles in the sand.
I take up bricks of silt in hand
To place in rows. Yet crumbling, they
Last moments few then fade away.
With mortar saline—deftly drawn
From ocean stretched not far beyond
This keep’s cracked doors—I ceaseless will
Recraft these stones with which I build.
I place them once again in rows
And offset stacks to ward off foes
From this majestic domicile,
‘Til comes one wave that leaves one pile.
Shall I craft castles in the sea?
Pursue that swell that now retreats
Beneath the sapphire crests? I dive
And there to make a manor strive.
Amidst Poseidon’s realm I toil,
But chaos of the oceans boils,
And churning currents, hurling force
Unseat each beam, unset each course.
As might of nature ‘gainst me teems,
To me, a mortal man, it seems
That sea, those roiling fathoms deep,
Is place unfit for castle keep.
So, from the water bursting free,
I rush and all around me see
A world of rubble, piled high
From making castles in the sky.