Windsor Ruins Poem by Kevin Scanlon

Twenty-three peeling columns prove the eerie beauty of decay
Their cast iron capitals serving as antique pots for wild flora
Twenty-three rooms, the roof and walls are all long gone today
Its wooden heart was destroyed but not its majestic aura.

Windsor Ruins is shrouded by trees where cotton grew before
Its stucco columns are still full of slave bricks breaking out
It was built just in time to see the Old South ruined by war
The crust of civilization crumbles just like the facades we tout.

A Yankee soldier was shot dead in the elegant front doorway
His ghost is sometimes seen walking up the missing staircase
Music and laughter can be heard as if from a spectral soiree
This encircling colonnade haunts us with history's embrace.

People get married here blissfully unaware of the incongruity
Photo ops of the lost grandeur are worth a falling brick or two
Ignore the warning signs and fence, let the kids climb freely
Should litter ruin the view, it'll quickly be covered up by kudzu.

Near Port Gibson, Mississippi, was once a vast plantation tract
Upon which stood the largest antebellum mansion in the state
Some amphibious Yankees barged in uninvited but left it intact
Then years later a careless guest's lit cigarette sealed its fate.