Visit to a Colliery: Pit Village, Beamish
A landscape in the shadow of a pit,
Coal dust has settled everywhere like sand
Even the cobbled streets are smeared with it
Underground is seamed like arteries
Of Saturn, Satan, long funereal bands
The ghosts of miners dead two centuries
Fourteen years old, coal pickers became men
Son followed father, dismal lives pre-planned
Into the foetid depths of that black wen
Even their snot, their tears, were streaked with coal
Their lungs were silted up, sweat, treacle-tanned
Ran down their backs. Mines claimed them, flesh and soul
They toiled like moles, wriggled like graveyard grubs
Some blotted out the dark in a steel band
Or turned to Masons, Methodists or pubs
Some dreamt of gas explosions, Poor Relief
When comrade's death would mark them like a brand
No tin-bath scrub could wash away that grief
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
I wrote a poem about a Welsh deserted village after the Slate Quarry closed. But this is a much better poem than mine.Some of the lines are superb, particularly the last one which evoked a great emotional response in me. There is no doubt this is going to feature in my favourites' list.