The North York Moors

When a man stands on the edge of the moor
Receiving the wind’s rough investiture
Of all that power which remains extant
From the creation of air, sea and land
He can cower in the lee of a wall
Or stand at his task on the pinnacle,
A monument against the howling sky
To all the ambitious dreams of mankind.

If I were an artist I would demand
Between new Hambleton and Old Byland
A statue raised to the living and dead
With hill forts behind and the vale ahead;

Though the Yorkshire grit from which it is hewn
By facing each day into the typhoon
Would come to clothe the air in yellow dust,
That change I understand, as all men must.

*

To rise swiftly from the valley of cars
Scything the heather in mud-spattered arcs
With boots crushing broken straws of bracken
In peat which darkly preserves our passing,

When warmth as solid as the sun is rich
Builds as you break like dawn over a ridge
In the deep strata of shoulder and thigh
And suddenly covers a thousand miles;

When, disturbed, a grouse hiccups into flight
Low through the mists which are thick with light;
When this could be some damp city alley
Where children and drunks meet principally

For love, and to solemnly keep their trysts
For all that the outside world still exists -
Know this, the old walker you overtake
Is yourself, setting a different pace.