Alisonpoetry

She walked the grounds and paced the floors, A young lady whose mother came from faraway shores. Her husband was the Baron of Bosworth Hall, Sir Wolstan had anger issues, not the belle of the ball. Anna was very lonely and made friends With a paid member of staff. Anna’s father became very annoyed and showed his wrath. The gardener and Anna would sneak off to the woods, Their love was not to be, for he lacked the financial goods. Yes, Sir Wolstan stated that the gardener was far below Anna’s privileged degree, Definitely not of husband status—very sadly, not he. Anna’s mother died shortly after her birth, Back in those days, there was little medical worth. There is a myth that Sir Wolstan set a man trap In the grounds of the great big house. Soon she would be dead, never to have a spouse. The trap was meant for the paid member of staff, But it caught Anna on her way down the path. She began to bleed heavily and fell on the path, A victim, it seemed, of he...

  I built this house of stone and lime To stand against the tide of time, To keep the common world away From where my gentle daughter lay. I saw the way he looked at her— That digging boy, that common cur— And so I swore by oath and blood To crush their passion in the mud. I did not mean for her to stray Beyond the light of common day. I set the trap for coarser feet, Where garden paths and thickets meet. But God, the sound of metal bone! A sound that turned my heart to stone. I found her there, my only child, By my own cleverness defiled. The halls are silent, cold, and wide, With nowhere left for me to hide. For though I buried her with grace, I still see Anna's phantom face. She does not speak, she does not cry, She only watches as I die, A prisoner in the house I made, Haunted by the trap I laid.

  The Girl in the Garden A father’s pride, a father’s wall, Enclosed the grounds of Bosworth Hall. But love grew wild beyond the gate, Unaware of iron, unaware of hate. She stepped where shadows softly lie, Beneath a cold and Leicester sky. The steel was hidden, the trap was set, For a lover’s foot she had not met. The snap of jaws, the cry of pain, Her crimson blood like summer rain. The gardener’s son she sought to see, Now haunts the roots of the chestnut tree. The Grey Lady She is a song the Watersons sing, A ghostly breath, a winter thing. Nineteen years was all she stayed, Before the debt of blood was paid. She walks the halls in a dress of mist, With a heavy heart and a broken wrist. Through the library door and the moonlit stair, You’ll feel the chill of her golden hair. The 4th Baronet, in his robes of stone, Left his daughter to die alone. But though they buried her deep in the clay, Anna Dixie will never stay away.

I Was Written Once I was not born in ink, as you would understand, No certificate to prove me, no seal, no steady hand. Only water, cool and brief, in Cadeby, Leicestershire, England, A name spoken softly, then loosed across the land. They called me Anna—once— And thought it would remain, But names can fade like winter breath Against a windowpane. My brother’s path was certain, His place the world would know, While I moved through the chambers Where quieter lives must go. In Bosworth Hall I learned the sound of doors, Of footsteps kept from echo, of voices kept indoors. Not all who live in houses are meant to leave a trace— Some pass like shifting candlelight that never marks a place. Sir Wolstan Dixie 4th Baronet was not a man of silence, Nor one the world forgot, But I was not his history— Or else I was, and was not. I remember little clearly— The cold, perhaps, the day, When bells were rung above me And time was closed away. At St Peter’s Church, Market Bosw...

  In Bosworth Hall the years lie folded deep, In timber, stone, and silence where older stories sleep. Not all are told in fullness, not all are meant to stay— Some fade between the margins and quietly slip away. A name once inked in passing, then never written twice, No portrait in the gallery, no place in cold device. Just one small line in winter, when bells were softly rung, And all that could be certain was how briefly she’d been young. At St Peter’s Church, Market Bosworth the record still remains, A date, an age, a surname—no triumphs, no refrains. The earth received her gently, as it has done for all, Whether named in grandest house or none remembered at all. And somewhere near in Cadeby, Leicestershire, England, A child was once made known, With water, word, and witness—yet never fully shown. No line connects the moments, no hand has drawn it clear, But time and place together still quietly draw her near. Sir Wolstan Dixie 4th Baronet left marks that hi...

  The Grey Daughter of Bosworth At Bosworth Hall the corridors breathe at night, Where candle-flame once trembled and never held its light. The walls keep what was whispered, the floors recall her tread— A daughter never written, though long among the dead. They say she walked in secret where the iron teeth were laid, Where love was not permitted and quiet vows were made. A step too far in shadow, a cry no one would claim— And history closed its ledger before it wrote her name. In Cadeby, Leicestershire, England the water touched her brow, A child of rank and silence, forgotten even now. No portrait hangs to hold her, no record speaks her part— Only a fading echo in Bosworth’s guarded heart. Sir Wolstan Dixie 4th Baronet kept his lands in order, With iron will and temper no servant dared to border. But stone cannot contain what blood and grief allow— And something walks those chambers that will not be stilled now. At St Peter’s Church, Market Bosworth beneath the ...