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