(1937 - / Leeds / England)

What do you think this poem is about?

National Trust

Bottomless pits. There's on in Castleton,
and stout upholders of our law and order
one day thought its depth worth wagering on
and borrowed a convict hush-hush from his warder
and winched him down; and back, flayed, grey, mad, dumb.

Not even a good flogging made him holler!

O gentlemen, a better way to plumb
the depths of Britain's dangling a scholar,
say, here at the booming shaft at Towanroath,
now National Trust, a place where they got tin,
those gentlemen who silenced the men's oath
and killed the language that they swore it in.

The dumb go down in history and disappear
and not one gentleman's been brough to book:

Mes den hep tavas a-gollas y dyr

(Cornish-)
'the tongueless man gets his land took.'

Submitted: Saturday, October 15, 2005


Comments about this poem (National Trust by Tony Harrison )

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  • Michael Shepherd (10/15/2005 3:48:00 PM)

    Webmaster: check spelling in lines 1 and 14 please

    3 person liked.
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