The 1970 Isle Of Wight Music Festival Poem by ANDREW BLAKEMORE

The year of nineteen seventy drew
Six hundred thousand folk or more
Who came to hear the music play
So large the crowd did grow,
They made their way to Afton Down
By foot by road by bus and car,
Then pitched their tents upon the slopes
Of 'Desolation Row'.

A purple haze descended there
That filled the minds of every soul,
Which floated through the darkness
And did bathe the land in light,
For there they heard the swan song as
The blue wild angel scorched the earth,
And touched the stars within the sky
As fires burned so bright.

The music played and didn't stop
Five days and nights it carried on,
The lights went down yet few did sleep,
And all had so much fun,
When Havens took the final stage
To close the show as dawn did break,
And lit with gold the waiting land
He sang 'Here comes the sun'.

And as it shone upon the down
The people made their way back home,
Soon litter strewn across the field
Was all that did remain,
The music ceased the air was still
And all around a breathless hush,
The peace restored so all could hear
The songbirds once again.