David's Favourite Poems

Pen-y-Ghent
by David Morphet

Up the gritstone steps of Pen-y-Ghent,
moorland impounded in a maze of walls.
On the horizon stand the other
high places of the Pennine trinity –
uncrowned Whernside; Ingleborough helm -
and down below, a great quarry-scar –
a five-tiered Epidaurus, limestone-grey –
gouged out of Horton hill.

This is my territory. This is where
landscape speaks in an accent that I know
in every clough and thwaite and settlement;
in the high rakes and dry scars of the moor;
in the beck that trickles out of Browgill Cave;
in the dark shafts of the swallow-holes;
in the rough pastures of the valley sides;
in the cold rain siling down on Pen-y-Ghent.