MORNING AT CASTLERIGG

  

Trudging an hour uphill with backpacks, soon

We rose toward the rising Sun. The dew

Still gleamed upon the fields well before noon.

At last we reached the shrine we sought to view.

 

Blencathra, Skiddaw, Lonscale Fell, all turned

In prayer to face the sky. The cows and sheep

Grazed calmly on the withered mountain fern,

Outside the Circle, in the stone walls’ keep.

 

“What is it you have come to see?” they asked,

Just glancing toward us when we glanced at them,

Then turned again to munching leaves of grass.

We were but reeds that trembled in the wind.

 

All History upon us had devolved.

Five thousand years passed—who could tell us how?

When Moses smashed the Tables of the Law,

Those rocks had grown as old as Christ is now.

 

Did Druids worship living Stars by name,

Or Stone Age men here bargain for an axe?

The Dead surrounded us; but whence they came,

What Spirit world unknown, we knew no fact.

 

The soul of Saint John’s Vale became our own,

Through which all creatures dwelt in us to be.

We sat together on one timeless stone

And smiled before the camera. Suddenly,

 

A military jet roared through the clouds,

Maneuvering toward Keswick, where it shied

And vanished in the future, roaring loud.

Old England’s glory flashed before our eyes.