I studied this poem at school in the 1970s and think about it every time I see an old road with trees arching over it.
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| Stane Street |
This Lane - Andrew Young
Years
and years and man’s thoughtful foot,
Drip and guttering rains
and mute
Shrinkage of snows, and shaggy-hoofed
Horse have sunk
this lane tree-roofed
Now patched with blossoming
elder,
Wayfaring-tree and guelder;
Lane that eases the
sharp-scarped hill
Winding the slope with leisurely will.
Foot
of Briton, formal Roman,
Saxon and Dane and Sussex yeoman
Have
delved it deep as river-bed,
Till I walk wading to my head
In
air so close and hot
And by the wind forgot,
It seems to me
that in this place
The earth is breathing on my face.
Here
I loiter a lost hour,
Listen to bird, look on a flower.
What
will be left when I am gone?
A trodden root, a loosened stone
And
by the blackthorn caught
Some gossamery thought
Of
thankfulness to those dead bones
That knit hills closer
than loose stones.
Andrew Young (1885 - 1971) Scotland
