No ornamental fountains bear
A play of waters from adjacent hills.
What history and symbol’s here?
See there ahead two towers mismatched,
(their turrets likewise, so I feel).
One tower rears up too weighty large
And granite grey against the whole.
Then too it’s set high up above neat rows
Of windows ranged in squatted, half
Apologetic line. These border and protect
The draughty corridors and rooms
Not even summer breezes heat.
French pepper pots and witches hats
If once desired for fantasy or foreign tone
Lack power and any pretty grace
Beneath the mournful canopy
Of usual cloud. And certain is that
Acres by the thousand and massed chilly woods
Hide nothing of the fairy kind, disclose alone
The all too real of mud and showers
Which may refresh but not renew
Where some might even mourn for life.
Death lurks on every side from many a shot
To deer and grouse. And yet it’s death
For only sport disturbs the air
With sounds of praise and merriment.
If relative or friend has breathed their last
You’d scarcely know; report and comfort
For the same turns mute. Mind does not hunt
Out words. Instead, it’s feet and body work upon
An inconvenient puzzle whose therapy is
To trudge, ride, fish and gaze upon
The empty grounds until it’s time
Yet once again to eat and sleep
The waves of silenced grief away.
If soul exists, survives, goes up
Or down or anywhere at all
Marks thought too all-transcendent of
The stale bare isness of the sombre place
Whose heart and measure are outside
With loam traversed by booted stride.
Inspiration is bought dear and needs
Right settings for bright flourishing.
Today decay and mould are at the walls
Rise up, I think you scarcely can
Go forward but it would be hard.
Some sites can’t speak to truth and time.
McCleary's Alternatives 