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.”