Beware of ruins: they have a treacherous charm;

Insidious echoes lurk among their stones;

That scummy pool was where the fountain soared;

The seated figure, whose white arm

Beckons you, is a mock-up of dry bones

And not, as you believe, your love restored.

The moonlight lends her grace, but have a care:

Behind her waits the fairy Melusine.

The sun those beams refract died years ago.

The moat has a romantic air

But it is choked with nettles and obscene

And phallic fungi rot there as they grow.

Beware of ruins; the heart is apt to make

Monstrous assumptions on the unburied past;

Though cleverly restored, the Tudor tower

Is spurious, the facade a fake

Whose new face is a death-mask of the last

Despairing effort before it all went sour.

There are ruins, too, of a less obvious kind;

I go back; cannot believe...