The Cut
A country yearns industry
from assiduous minds revolutionary,
cities conceived with mind set and skill
yet lay insipid in the body of Britannia
those in need of life’s blood,
akin to human organs
served only; by arterial veins.
The first sod to lift an unfolding nation
the first cut the inauguration the call,
have a thought pleasure seeker
enduring men with pick, shovel, some did fall,
his sweat given freely or not as the case may be
to mingle with earth removed
or deep within copse ghyll may well be for a tree.
The Dales emptied, of its men
famine ravaged Ireland too,
drawn towards the rush of new born adrenaline
a creation of foresight
when the need for this an artery to flow
through lock, tunnel aqueduct,
transforming her virgin land
albeit out of trades of old,
an era steeped in tradition
tools an extension: of one’s own hand.
Adverse weather geography
this realm having found fame,
complexity from above, below,
the elements the environment
nothing to stand in obsessions way,
from soil to solid rock, energy sapping
clods of clay negotiated all
amidst many tongues, yet same laborious conclusion
wheeled away by the barrowman;
horse and cart.
This precious land host to many heroes
those upon columns stand tall,
our sons live on in remembrance
a memorial for them all,
so to this symbolic structure
craved through hostile terrain,
a burly navvies sculptured cleft
within the very earth
his body one day to lay.
Oh the city Leeds, city Liverpool and those in between
the bargees upon the cut there now do dwell
living within the ideals of another time sown
but of ease it is with just a memory
conservation the historic debt on loan!
© Harry J Horsman 2013
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