Pennine Spring - Steve Tilston

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