Fay Slimm - A Colourful Past?

Relics of castles and mines fill the eye
Of the curious here, tell their own tale
With colourful mixture of 'truth and lie'
Known as legend. This allure never fails
Along Cornish coasts, where adventures leap
From every cave. The past is present, clings
With dark grit to each cliff and white beach.
Old cannon ball scars, and granite rock rings
Where victims stood no chance. Castellated
Forts brought battle's swift end to each mighty
Man, and slower death to prisoners, fated
To black dungeon cell. Danger fell in flights
Of ladders too, which daily took the lives
Of countless miners, toiling in the dark
To dig for tin. Sea above, and striving
With the deadly wet within, souls made marks
Of painful gain with every load. Beauty
Was not noticed then, daylight hours and night
The same, lives were spent in laboured duty.
Viewed now by tourist, never will seem quite
As tragic as old gravestones tell. Former
Days were coloured with tough life, bravely borne.

Fay Slimm

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-colourful-past/