Sitting carefully amongst the trees

The distant castle gently breathes

A thousand years of history 

In shadowed shrouds of, mystery 

 

What have these worn walls seen,

Sieges, victory’s, a well known Queen

Noblemen that fall and rise

Ignominious peasant lives

 

We wander round and touch the stone

And read about who made it home

But what about those poor souls

That cut the wood and dug the holes 

 

Imagine standing in a field

Where’s the place that will least yield?

This looks ok it’s on a  mound

Good place here to break some ground

 

Dig here my man and make it quick 

We need to get some stone and bricks

Towers 4 ,100 feet

And walls I think thick and deep,

 

And oh, a moat yes really twee

Full of fish for Friday tea.

A draw bridge that goes up and down

In case the riff raff come around.

 

But seriously back to the plot

The general populations lot

To spend the rest of  given life

Building castles for someone’s wife,

 

A mammoth task for all the work

The Mason, Joiner, Smith and  Clerk

To raise a sandstone fort of fear

 To cast its presence down the years.

 

But once it was a building site

Foundations in , a busy hive

Of hundreds working tirelessly 

Stone by stone for us to see

 

Who placed that large block in the wall

What was his name , did he fall,

Or did he work until he stopped 

With worn out limbs and then he dropped

 

It’s secrets we will never know

As history tends to never show

The minutia truth of daily life

The love,the work, and daily strife

 

But as I amble round the grounds 

Remember boyhood running round

Climbed the walls, illegally 

But now I get inside for free.