Pennine Spring

All of you who walk the chain
Must learn to love the wind and rain
Dare to call these mountains friends
Know the way the backbone bends
How the Welkin grips the soul
Stirs some blessed rigmarole
Where the peaks and waterfalls
Dwarf all man-made mansion halls
Veterans and pilgrims mark the chosen way
Lengthening but loyal shadows follow
Soon summer will embrace the day
Soon across the heather skims the swallow
The murmur of the pots and gills
That honeycomb, the limestone hills
Over Malham’s cove and tarn
Ancient herdsman’s pens and barns
Ah these pathways mark a trail
Way beyond the Dove and Swale
Ghostly legions weave and spin
Brigantes and Jackobin
Is that woodsmoke from a tavern chimney rise?
A welcome light a flickering from a window?
Turn westward face the salmon skies
It could be a sunny day tomorrow
A weathered tongue scolds and scores
Comes keening up the valley floor
Past the Withen’s ruined bones
And wuthering erodes the stones
Is that music wafting from an open door?
The chink of many flowing bowls and laughter?
Scrape the mud and weave across the floor
Banish aches and pains to stumble after