I walk along the side Of a hill well climbed: Out past the glen where the trees grow thick And tall And cover the path with dappled shade. Branches overhang with umbrellas of leaves Until you step out beyond, out the other side, Onto an open hill, Where you can stop and gaze at the land below. This land, a timeless land, It stretches out below- A patchwork of colour and fields and towns and roads, Where the river curls and meanders through, And you see the riverbank lit like copper’s glow, The mountains rise behind like shadowed ghosts. And to the side, atop a peak, A single, towering figure, Stoic and sleek, Yet as ghostly as those shadowy hills, The blue, misty giants, Like a cloak of low, thick clouds behind. I gaze below and wonder how this land would look unchanged from times of old, Hundreds or thousands of years before the scars of roads Were etched into its skin And the constant buzz of modern life, Of vehicles and industry, Obscured an untouched peace. These birds I hear And the bubbling of that waterfall, The trees, the sheep, the wind: How can we now enjoy these sounds of home country and nature Without the constant murmur of twenty-first century? With this meditative gaze and these wondering thoughts, The twilight draws in, And I can no longer distinguish the mountains from the sky As a thick blanket of cloud engulfs the horizon afore me. Such a strange softness- Bright, yet dim, too, on the eyes, And envelops this here land in a veil of grey, Preceding the black of night And marking my return to the modern life- Away from this hill, and back through the glen, Where the trees stand like sentries Who guard this hill, the place Where land and time stretch out together And merge in this timeless grace.
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