A book of Bristol sonnets | ||
130
CHEPSTOW CASTLE.
I ask an entrance, and a little child,Without a challenge, opes the mailèd gate!
Where with his booted Squires Fitz-Osborne sate,
The spurred cock struts, the garden flowers run wild.
Where sweet-breathed ladies from the casements smiled,
Gay wall flowers peep! Through towers machicolate
Fall the prized straws, while building Jackdaws prate;
And Ring-doves coo, where fighting men reviled!
At eyelet holes, the very Yews they bent
Have grown to size, and shut the aim of bow!
The Swallows are the only arrows now!
Unchecked the Ivy storms the battlement!
And while thy tower shades lessen in the Wye,
I question peace, complain for chivalry!
A book of Bristol sonnets | ||