A love letter to the Palace of Westminster

I was waxing lyrical about the Palace, and thought poetry fit it best.

Oh to roam the stones of Westminster’s keep,

And enter where a thousand winters sleep;

Through the Hall where ancient hammerbeams span,

A theater for feast, for ghost, and man.

She has seen the rackets swing, the monarchs fall,

The weight of war scratched onto her walls.

Then upward, through the Lobby’s vaulted grace,

Between the Commons’ grit and the Lords’ lace.

An august masterpiece, a gilded mask,

Performing every heavy, history-laden task.

But look beneath the face to find the soul,

Where rot thrives and hungry shadows stroll.

In the lightless depths where stone begins to weep,

The mold and mortar secrets strictly keep.

From the soaring gods to the basement’s grey decay,

Fire waits to take it all away.

She is a marvel built of love and rust,

A soaring dream that settles into dust.

For as she may burn, burn once again as before,

We’ll weep for the wings that will beat no more.