Today’s Poetry Daily takes inspiration from another site visited with the Marble Arch Caves Global Geopark guides on out familiarisation trip with Ireland’s Heartland in Westmeath. We lunched and had a guided tour of Belvedere House and Gardens. Originally what was called a gentleman’s shooting box or hunting lodge, the Palladian House sits in splendour overlooking Ennels Lake. One of its claims to fame is having Euope’s largest folly in the grounds, built when one brother’s next door pile gave the heir a view of the back door and servants going to and fro. He built a wall to look like a monastic ruin, which is known as The Jealousy Wall. The period seems to lend itself to rhyming couplets. The House and family seemed to have little talent for happiness, although the nobleman who held the title during The Great Hunger kept all his tenants in employment and was respected locally.
The Jealousy Wall
Such Palladian mansion’s grace
Disguises an evil misplaced.
No Jealousy Wall will exclude
The bitterness a heart exudes.
A mean will set out to destroy
Any trace of a wife’s small joys.
For jealousy is great folly
Landmarked with faux ruined abbey.
Especially so. Damaged souls
Not saved by wealth, unholy
Monument to misery.
A wall of less sense, more money.
Copyright 2019 Bee Smith. All rights reserved.
