Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, CASTLE WILLIAM, by NATHALIA CRANE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CASTLE WILLIAM, by                    
First Line: Where buttermilk channel doth seek to beguile
Last Line: "down in the casemates of old ""castle bill."
Subject(s): Castles; Soldiers


WHERE Buttermilk Channel doth seek to beguile
Diffident margins of Governor's Isle,

There is a fortress all bastioned and chill,
Known to the army as old "Castle Bill."

There are occasions when soldiers may smile;
Not in that castle on Governor's Isle;

Not in the cloisters where sentries abound;
Not where a gun butt leaps up from the ground.

Oh! There are many—the old cannoneers,
Infantry sergeants and grave grenadiers;

They have gone onward to zones of desire,
Scorning all theories of musketry fire;

They have advanced to civilian vales,
Building new barracks for sweet nightingales.

Yet they revert in their leisure sedate,
Seeing in visions that old castle gate;

Still they remember their days in the mill—
Down in the casemates of old "Castle Bill."





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