Bolton Abbey On A Summer’s Afternoon Poem by C Richard Miles

Gaunt, ghost-like, glassless eyes gaze gently down
Surveying still the sultry summer scene.
Vague memories of mediaeval monks
Fade as wild children charge on grass so green.
The austere, ancient Abbey walls appear,
Whilst frolicsome footballers hack about,
Holy, hallowed halls harbouring half-echoes
Of the past, subsumed by modern-day shouts.

Old, not old as time itself, but age-old
Now just a backdropp for the buoyant beachballs.
Languidly looming, its cold, carved columns
Watch stray whistling waifs wander ‘neath its walls
The once-proud priory, fallen from favour
Sees suntanned swimmers surfing and splashing,
Its sombre silence in stark, sullen contrast
To bikers and bathers dashing and splashing.

None of the cavorting chuckling children
Can stir the serenity of its shade:
Those mucky mudlarks making sandcastles;
But high, haughty arches, with ivy clad,
Ignore the tinny ice-cream vendor’s bell
And stand aloof, perhaps in pensive prayer.
As ramblers stumble on the stepping stones,
Cold cloisters carry centuries of care.

The day is nearly done; back into cars,
As, sleeping still, the spires somnolent stand,
The larking, laughing lads and lasses leap.
The ancient church lies lonesome in the land,
Too tired with age to join the present time;
And, spurning worldly ways, with innocence,
Whilst night begins in Yorkshire’s clubs and bars,
The Abbey rests in peaceful permanence.