The cotton mills now remnants <br />Of their ghostly past they stand, <br />The clunking looms are silent <br />That once echoed through the land, <br />While all those who had slaved and toiled <br />Within those red-bricked walls, <br />Now cast upon the scrapheap <br />And nobody hears their calls. <br /> <br />The distant hills are shrouded <br />By the mist that will not clear, <br />As if it rests in sympathy <br />For all the people here, <br />No jobs, no work, no hope for them <br />Through dreary streets they roam, <br />Their town is like a prison <br />Yet to them it's still their home. <br /> <br />They look out of their windows <br />Where the sun does never shine, <br />Whilst waiting for the winds to change <br />And searching for a sign, <br />Alas it never comes and so <br />These folks shall all grow old, <br />In the wretched throes of winter <br />And abandoned to the cold.<br /><br />ANDREW BLAKEMORE<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-cotton-mills/
