When a man stands on the edge of the moor <br />Receiving the wind’s rough investiture <br />Of all that power which remains extant <br />From the creation of air, sea and land <br /> <br />He can cower in the lee of a wall <br />Or stand at his task on the pinnacle, <br />A monument against the howling sky <br />To all the ambitious dreams of mankind. <br /> <br />If I were an artist I would demand <br />Between new Hambleton and Old Byland <br />A statue raised to the living and dead <br />With hill forts behind and the vale ahead; <br /> <br />Though the Yorkshire grit from which it is hewn <br />By facing each day into the typhoon <br />Would come to clothe the air in yellow dust, <br />That change I understand, as all men must. <br /> <br /> * <br /> <br />To rise swiftly from the valley of cars <br />Scything the heather in mud-spattered arcs <br />With boots crushing broken straws of bracken <br />In peat which darkly preserves our passing, <br /> <br />When warmth as solid as the sun is rich <br />Builds as you break like dawn over a ridge <br />In the deep strata of shoulder and thigh <br />And suddenly covers a thousand miles; <br /> <br />When, disturbed, a grouse hiccups into flight <br />Low through the mists which are thick with light; <br />When this could be some damp city alley <br />Where children and drunks meet principally <br /> <br />For love, and to solemnly keep their trysts <br />For all that the outside world still exists - <br />Know this, the old walker you overtake <br />Is yourself, setting a different pace.<br /><br />Christopher Woodall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-north-york-moors/
