The Victorian Dowager

A Victorian Dowager

There is an elderly lady
who has lived by the ocean
For over a century.

Once the epitome of elegance,
she won the admiration of all
with her noble mien.

Time has been cruel;
her fine laces are tattered.
She has been stripped of her jewels
and Great Danes have gnawed on her newels.

History whispers through her halls,
while raccoons bumble down the steep service stairs
to raid the refrigerator.

Black dogs howl with sirens,
and bay at the strangers
who have the temerity to approach
her peeling front doors.

Locals fear those doors;
they point, and shudder,
recounting tales of scarlet-gowned apparitions
who attempt to push unwanted visitors
to their doom
at the foot of the gracious grand staircase.

Wide eyed witnesses relate
how a shadow sits by the window
of the master suite
waiting, watching
for a captain who will never return,
though the scent of his pipe
yet lingers.

Two policemen were driven off the third floor
by a disembodied voice shouting "Get Out!"
from the thick dark.

One resident tells
of a young girl in a calico dress
who wanders across the front lawn
with a white kitten,
and disappears.

Hearsay and rumour are poison-mawed.

I see different visions,
Days when the mansion
Was bright with life,
and every window glowed
with the warmth of the fireplace beyond,
before she was shorn of the tiara
of her widow's walk that views the ocean.

I love her cracked walls,
the shabby opulence of her scrolled trim,
the romances and tragedies
that she has witnessed
through fifteen decades.

I grudge time, and its helpmate, decay
Every chunk of plaster that rainwater bears crashing to the broad pine planks of the floor.

But we are poor
and can only sit in her high ceilinged rooms
dreaming of the untold wealth
That would restore this Victorian dowager
to her former glories.