A Different View

I'd love to have the time to go and visit this Castle sometime this year, and because I wanted to my friend sent me this rather fabulous image all in Harris Tweed.

The image is of Urquhart Castle which sits beside Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland. It's what they describe now as ruin but I rather like Alexander Anderson's poem about how it helps if you use a little imagination. I love the idea that poetry can help us envision as well as feel the experience.

A Castle Old And Grey

Alexander Anderson

I never see a castle
That is gaunt and grey and grim,
But my thoughts at once go backward
To the past so misty and dim.
To the time when tower and turret,
Kept watch far over the vale;
And along the sounding draw-bridge
Rode knights in their suits of mail.

I see the sunshine glancing
On helmet, pennon, and spear;
And hear from the depth of the forest,
A bugle calling clear.

I fill the hall with visions
Of ladies rich in their bloom;
And stately knights in armour,
And waving with feather and plume.

If I climb the broken stairway,
Where the stone is smooth and fine,
I hear a rustle and whisper,
And footsteps in front of mine.

Whisper of youth and maiden,
As they met in the long ago;
His deep and strong and manly,
Hers tender and sweet and low.

But maiden and youth have vanished,
Away from the scene and the light;
Gone, too, the high-born lady,
And the plumed and armoured knight.

Only the grey old castle,
Of crumbling stone and lime,
Still stands to speak of the ages,
And the iron footsteps of Time.