Beneath the hill a littered landscape spread
All newly varnished by the garish sun;
Newcorn shone harsh and green,but new brick's harsher red
Showed that down there more coal than corn was won.
Tall chimneys flew their smoke as masts fly flags;
Great wheels on headstocks spun, and stopt,and spun again;
Pubs, cinemas, fried fish and chips, and fags -
Such were suggested by that cluttered plain -
Hot asphalt, Council schools, packed cottages in rows,
Spoil banks and cinder paths and broken hedges,
Barbed wire, corrugated iron, all that goes
With smirched farms and building land in wedges.
And all this litter was so raw, so new,
Even when derelicted each thing glowed,
Shattered but modern; glittered to the view
Like a smashed bottle on a tar-mac road.
The very sky, so hot, so smooth, so bright,
Seemed that day newly turned, dust-proof and water-tight.
And then I started; for my glance lit on
A grim grey tower, screened by foliage -
Incongruous, startling, its grey pallor shone -
A strayed spectator from another age.
I do not think I should have been
Much more surprised if I had seen
One of those men who many a year before
Had left this vale to fight at Agincourt.
If I had seen him with my eyes,
Tricked out in his forgotten guise,
Himself bewildered, but uncowed,
Pushing his way, come striding through
The gaping, staring, doth-capped crowd,
To this old church; to this one place he knew.
NOTE: Harworth Colliery, opened just after WW1, is a strong candidate for the new coalfield. The parish church, All Saints, has original Norman features.