Dragsholm Castle, Denmark — The Lady
by Dawg
Perched on mist-clad hilltop where the wind moans through the stone,
Dragsholm’s ancient turrets brood above moss-slick stones.
White Lady drifts the galleries, her veil a narrowing scream,
eyes hollow wells of longing, draining centuries of dream.
She lingers in the oriels, pale silk sweeping the floor,
seeking James Hepburn’s shadow at each oak-carved door.
Grey Lady drapes herself in sorrow’s deepest hue,
her mournful footfalls trace the tower where regrets accrue.
Tattered lace upon her wrist–gift from a love betrayed–
she wanders past the armchairs where their vows were never paid.
Hepburn’s spirit prowls the windlass, cuffed by covenant’s chain,
eyes glinting with rebellion, heart caught in time’s refrain.
No blade can sever history, nor mercy soothe his pain,
his silhouette convulses through each blood-drenched campaign.
In the chapel’s shadowed transept, candles sputter dread,
ash drifts over pews that heard a lover’s final pledge.
The hush is thick with half-spoken curses and broken psalms,
marbled saints turn sorrow’s face to vaults too full of gloom.
Courtyard stones are slick with tears from centuries of rain,
where horses’ hooves once thundered, now stillness rules the plain.
At midnight, bells toll backward, summoning the damned,
wraiths convene beneath the arches, clasping fate in ghastly hands.
Each tragedy unburied: the child who chilled the crib,
the countess flung from ramparts for a whisper meant to fib,
the knight who begged forgiveness in a pool of his own gore,
all drawn to Dragsholm’s hearth, bound to echo evermore.
No exile in daylight–shadows claim the keep by right,
marrying stone to spirit, melding terror into night.
And in the breeze that rattles glass and frays the stony crest,
the Lady and her ghosts unfold their ageless unrest.