A View Of Edinburgh Castle

Locked in these stones, three thousand years of history Romans, warlords, kings, princesses, knights Rising and falling like the waters of Leith Pluck the airy castle off its perch Sheer off the streets, flick off the people What remains is the heart of the place The child of a dead volcano, grooved by ice Aneirin the bard spoke well of it Din Eidyn, the stronghold of Eidyn Named by the Angles Edinburgh In this ‘Castle of the Maidens', Queen Margaret died, her husband and son Both fallen, fighting Normans Centuries flew, like a pack of shuffled cards The castle changing hands in the haar of uncertain times Loved by the Royal Stewarts, fortress and residence Arsenal, archive, House of the Honours of Scotland The Crown, the Sceptre and the Sword of State Its stout walls welcomed Mary and Earl Bothwell In his brief lustful journey to the grave The sounds are multi-layered. Clatter of footsteps Clash and skirl of bagpipes, drums and bugles The chatter of freckled pupils, the calls of birds The babel of languages from the wider world Mons Meg, the stone of destiny, the military tattoo Each of them spawning trails of myth and story The Bruce and Wallace flank the ancient drawbridge Icons built to kindle Scottish pride There's ghosts a-plenty, if you seek them out Lady Glamis, one of 300 witches Burned at the stake out-with this castle's walls For witchcraft, on the orders of the King Twisting against Auld Reekie's skies like herring Smoked to a turn.21 pirates of the Caribbean, Who swopped this rugged prison for the gallows Even the elephant mascot of the 78th Trundles on ponderous feet in the war museum Deep in the tunnels under the castle walls A ghostly bagpiper plays on. At dawn and dusk, A headless drummer boy flits round, A black hound glides unearthly, out of vision French prisoners, too, put in the odd appearance And long ago a dragon curled its scaly coils On David's Tower, a wraith of awe and fear Boom! The one o clock gun breaks bold and loud Across the city's bows, the castle rising from mist Like a great galleon on a sea of clouds