CASTLE WILLIAM
Where Buttermilk Channel doth seek to beguile
Diffident margins of Governor’s Isle,
There is a fortress all bastioned and chill,
Known to the army as old “Castle Bill.”
There are occasions when soldiers may smile;
Not in that castle on Governor’s Isle;
Not in the cloisters where sentries abound;
Not where a gun butt leaps up from the ground.
Oh! There are many—the old cannoneers,
Infantry sergeants and grave grenadiers;
They have gone onward to zones of desire,
Scorning all theories of musketry fire;
They have advanced to civilian vales,
Building new barracks for sweet nightingales.
Yet they revert in their leisure sedate,
Seeing in visions that old castle gate;
Still they remember their days in the mill—
Down in the casemates of old “Castle Bill.”