Sack of Castle Crag

Ten thousand years Crag Castle stood;

In an evil hour, its ages were ended.

Ten thousand armies on the threshold failed;

One final blast bared the foundations. 

Ten thousand weapons broke on the walls;

A single shot overturned them in ashes. 

Soaring towers and solid walls,

Mighty battlements, mead-halls massive,

For hundreds of years, and perhaps longer still,

In solitary splendor on the summit's-shoulder.

None knows who built it; their names are lost;

What wars they waged, the wise alone know.

Long it stood among lofty peaks,

With watchful eye on the valleys below.

Never the fort had known defeat,

Save only once; it was empty ever after.

Now again came on a grim defeat,

An end of glory in after times.

The warlocks ringed the walls about,

All the forces of evil, with flames in hand;

Then lowered their wands to light the fire,

In blackest dust from the bowels of the Earth.

The cannon spoke in cruel accents,

Words of woe, to bring walls to wreck.

Forward leapt the fiery shot,

Red-hot iron, ruin bringing.

Portal and portcullis in pieces fell;

Towers and walls came all tumbling down.