In An Ancient Castle Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

IN AN ANCIENT CASTLE

In an ancient castle, grim and dark,
Where candles flicker in corridors
Above the bogs, not far from the moors,
Surrounded by a leaf barren park
A ghost does wander, clad in chains.
She is a prisoner there.
And in despair
She voices her falsely spoken claims
That she was an innocent soul
Who never did stray
From the holy and pious righteous way;
Yet perdition has swallowed her spirit whole,
Casting her within the cold, stony walls,
For all the dreary nights and days.
Now the moon rises
And gilds the halls
Uncovering her disguises
Revealing this woman in the dress she wore
Long, long ago
In summery, golden, Patrician balls.
This dreary dress marks baleful decrees
Now transformed into her burial shroud -
Where banished felicities
Are not allowed.
And the bitter breezes blow
Into her hair and down her nape,
Into the open, wavering, miasmic gape
Of her dead and darkly curtained window
Carrying neither hymns nor light
In the ancient castle - in its eternal night.

JOHN LARS ZWERENZ