by Barry Williams

Created on: April 04, 2010

It was a challenge  gone unaswered for so long  you see

To stay a night  just a she or he

In a castle room alone in bed

Or leave instead

The castle had stood for four hundred years

Saw lives through laughter and many tears

When men left to fight some war

Never to return anymore

There was one brave knight  with a wife so fair

Bid her farewell and not to care

But he was wounded on a far off battle field

And died from a wound that never healed

His wife killed herself  she was so distraught

Her life ended  a day after her husband had fought

And now it said that both roam the castle walls

Haunting the castle in its passages and halls

So the present heirs offered a prize of five hundred pounds

To anyone who would brave the sights and sounds

Of the ghosts of the castle who came out at night

Who could talk to them and set things right

Now John McCain  was a fine brave soul

Some say he was slightly mad but on the whole

Brave enough to to take up the offer

To silence those who would only scoffer

Precisely at midnight  when all was still

John came awake with a bit of a chill

Two ghosts stood before him with a beckoning hand

Bid him not stay but rise and stand

And he was led down to to a marvelous sight

To the large hall  where the ghosts were gathered that night

To honor one so brave  who would answer the call

To stay one night  without  showing any fear  at all

Now  as John  danced and wined with the women and men

He was told stories of the past  from when

These men and women lived  and as their life stories enfolded

John became drunk and more emboldened

He bid them silence  as a plan evolved

He would write a book and make sure all were involved

If  they would leave the castle in peace

And if all their haunting would then cease

John woke up the following morn

Long after the sun had heralded the dawn

An empty bottle of scotch whisky lay by his side

And he wished that his headache would soon subside

Was it the whisky that  made him courageous

Did he sees ghosts or  had he had dreams simply  outrageous

And try as he may   a feeling arose  that could not  be dismissed

A pledge a promise  something he could not resist

In his mind he heard  voices music and singing

Scenes from the past  reminding him and bringing

Him to set about to write a book

The history of the castle every cranny and nook

From that day on like a man possessed

He wrote his book   and so addressed

And corrected the history  of the by gone days

When bravery was found in so many ways

He never accepted the five hundred pounds prize

The voices of the ghosts demanded otherwise

His book made a fortune and  he bought the castle  as a whole

Voices in his head led him to the fortune   or so I'm told

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