Goray Castle

From "The Pilot", 1965, I found this rather nice poem by Catherine Giles. If anyone knows anything about her, I'd be most interested to know. I believe she was the wife of Alan Giles, Dean of Jersey from 1959 to 1971.

Goray Castle
By Catherine Giles

Sombre and red against the changing skies
Guarding a peaceful, wave-washed stretch of sand.

The towers and battlements of Gouray rise
Enduring as the rock whereon they stand.

Beneath, white houses, like a string of pearls
Adorn the quay. The little sailing fleet

Basks in the sunshine: brown-limbed boys and girls
Explore the rocks on nimble, shoeless feet

They ponder, where the Castle’s shadow falls
The sea-shells microscopic mystery:

Nor heed the grandeur of those ancient walls
Whose very stones are steeped in history.

By day those walls – once refuge, dungeon, keep –
Look arrogantly down, their granite towers

Silent and grim, like giants half asleep
Oblivious of the changing tides and hours

But, with descending night, some elfin hand
Touches the battlements and, swift as thought,

Transforms the vast rock to an airy strand.
Surmounted by a gleaning fairy fort

You catch your breath, and gaze. A thing so fair
Seems strange, unearthly, as a dream at night:

Mirrored across the bay, it floats on air –
A phantom castle, moulded out of light!