If I were rich, little girl, little girl,
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I'd build you a castle all of pearl,
With towers that touched the tip of the moon;
Girded about with a sea-like tune
Of forests black with the star-kissed pine;
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And I should be yours and you should be mine
For ever and ever, week in—week out;
And in the forests beasts should range,
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And other monsters fierce and strange,
And we should ponder all the day
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On the blue lotus in the moat,
Or hear the hidden minstrels play
Or some slim lad with honeyed throat
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After the old Provençal way,
Our love that never can grow old;
Or in the scutcheoned chapel pray—
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If I were rich; ah! well-a-day.
And, when the evening star began
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To trim its silver lamp on high,
Beloved of God, forgot of man,
Up many a happy winding stair,
And watch the sinking of the sun,
And the wide meadows of the air
And kiss and turn away and sigh;
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Till east and west and north and south
Were nought but darkness and your mouth—
While eagles on the topmost towers
If I were rich, little girl,—said I.
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