In town of Holy Face, now Halez Fax
Are rows of back-to-backs in terraces
Between the mills that spill their thick black smoke.
Industry now dominates hill and dale.
Manufacture is master with muscle.
Sulphuric fumes poison the once green hills
Turning the trees to charcoal skeletons.
The peaceful sound of silence that once was
Is killed by loud clatter from textile mills
And clogs clomping up the steep cobbled streets
With steel segs grinding on the granite setts
As folk trudge to-and-fro in day’s routine,
Between the terrace rows of back-to-backs
In that old mill town known as Halez Fax.
Under the hedges the ground was still like a frozen brick,
Cracks zig zagged over the surface leaving gaps,
Where old Jacomus in his wild dance,
Would whirl and freeze as if in a trance,
Robins and Thrushes vainly search for grains and grubs,
Along with the scampering long tailed mouse,
His whiskers a twitching sensing out a louse,
Badgers warm and snug in their deep setts,
Foxes scream and call in the forest deep,
Pheasants shuffle in gamekeepers keep.
A rattle in bleak blangk twigs and branches,
A lady in white on her unicorn prances,
Breathing warm air from between ruby red lips,
Softening the earth making it fertile again,
Where plants and bushes will start to awaken,
The joy of rebirth and beginings anew once more.
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