Dreams Cecil Frances Alexander

Ireland's Women: Writings Past and Present edited by Katie Donovan, Alexander Norman Jeffares & Brendan Kennelly New York:  W. W. Norton & Company, 1995 originally in:  Poems, by Cecil Frances Alexander edited by William Alexander Macmillan, 1896

Beyond, beyond the mountain line,
The grey-stone and the boulder,
Beyond the growth of dark green pine,
That crowns its western shoulder,
There lies that fairy-land of mine,
Unseen of a beholder.

Its fruits are all like rubies rare;
Its streams are clear as glasses;
There golden castles hang in air,
And purple grapes in masses,
And noble knights and ladies fair
Come riding down the passes.

Ah me! they say if I could stand
Upon those mountain ledges,
I should see on either hand
Plain fields and dusty hedges;
And yet I know my fairy-land
Lies somewhere o'er their edges.