Accidental Reconciliation From the Castle in the Air to the Little Corner of the World Thomas Paine Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Cleary, Scott M., ed. Claeys, Gregory, gen. ed. Thomas Paine Collected Writings. Vol. II. Part 2: Poetry. Princeton Princeton UP 2026 pp. []-[]. 5 Volumes.

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Accidental Reconciliation From the Castle in the Air to the Little Corner of the World In the region of Clouds where the Whirlwinds arise My Castle of Fancy was built , The Turrets reflected the blue of the skies , And the windows with sun-beams were guilt . The rain-bow sometimes in its beautiful state Enameled the mansion around , And the figures that fancy in the clouds can create Supplied me with garden and ground . I had grottoes and Fountains and orange-tree groves , I had all that enchantment has told , I had sweet shady walks for the Gods and their Loves , I had mountains of coral and gold . But a storm that I felt not had risen and roll’d , While wrapt in a slumber I lay , And when I look’d out in the morning , behold , My Castle was carried away . It pass’d over rivers and vallies and groves , The World it was all in my view , I thought of my friends , of their fates , and their loves , And often , full often , of you . At length it came over a beautifull scene That nature in silence has made , The place was but small , but was sweetly serene , And checquer’d with sun-shine and shade . I gaz’d , and I envied , with painfull good will , And grew tir’d of my seat in the air , When all on a sudden my Castle stood still As if some attraction was there . Like a lark from the sky it came fluttering down , And plac’d me exactly in view , When who should I meet , in this charming retreat , This corner of calmness but you . Delighted to find you in honour and ease I felt neither sorrow nor pain , And the wind coming fair , I ascended the air , And went back with my Castle again . How strange are the changes that torture us here , Where tempests and hurricanes reign , But the friendship that suffers is surely sincere What e’er be the cause of the Pain . T.P.