For Edinburgh's Underground Ghosts

(The Edinburgh Mercat Ghost Tour)

by David Baresch

Here a city of ghosts, Edinburgh's welcoming hosts,
For in those centuries' past, vaults were laid, deep and vast.

And there the proletariat slaved to gain a living wage.
And, there the proletariat homed in crypts of toil, a hell of stone.

And there, the many fell, and there, the many died,
And there, the humble prayed, and there the mourning cried.

But of atoms, we're all made, and atoms live on and on,
So those, the dead, the long deceased, they are never really gone.

Their spirits still wander on, through moonlit shadowy nights,
Forever seeking, forever asking, "Where? Where? Where is my life?"

And when such corpses are seen, many a-folk cannot believe,
"Was something really there?
Did something really breathe?
Did something really whisper?
Did something pull my hair?"

But, then there are those who up and caw, "after life there is no more!"
Perhaps they are blind to the arrow of time that leads to death's opening door.

So, let us all take a stroll, beneath those stone-cold floors,
Let us learn, as we walk, from Edinburgh's ghostly Mercat Tours!