WRITTEN AT LUDLOW CASTLE

By John Drinkwater

Where wall and sill and broken window-frame

Are bright with flowers unroofed against the skies,

And nothing but the nesting jackdaws’ cries

Breaks the hushed even, once imperial came

The muse that moved transfiguring the name

Of Puritan, and beautiful and wise

The verses fell, forespeaking Paradise,

And poetry set all this hall aflame.

Now silence has come down upon the place

Where life and song so wonderfully went,

And the mole’ s afoot now where that passion rang,

Yet Comus now first moves his laurelled pace,

For song and life for ever are unspent,

And they are more than ghosts who lived and sang.