A Castle’s Whimsy

I stand in shadows, cold and bare,

My halls once echoed with laughter’s flare—

Generations danced where now I rot,

A Gothic relic, all but forgot. 

Bats and cats, my only kin,

They skulk where lords and ladies grinned,

Moss cloaks my walls, damp seeps through stone,

I’m a soggy old pile, left all alone. 

My turrets sigh with every gust,

Windows cracked, my iron’s rust,

Yet I dream of hands to mend my scars,

A family to chase out my bat-and-cat czars! 

Oh, for children’s feet to storm my keep,

Their giggles to wake me from this sleep,

Refurbished, I’d gleam, no longer a grump,

A castle reborn—less a bat-ridden dump!