Thnk you everyone for your favourable responses to this piece.
" bent to deny" refers to the reason the walls were built was to deny access
to the land . The flurry of Enclosures Acts from Tudor times on changed the
face of Merrie England, sheep replaced people, " a mammoth greed".
----- Original Message -----
From: "grasshopper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 8:58 PM
Subject: Re: New sub: Dry Stone Walls
> Dear Arthur,
> A fine piece of writing as usual, but I must confess I find it a bit
> over-stuffed in parts. It's a bit like a piece of music played full volume
> all the way through,- becomes exhausting on the ear.
> I think sometimes it's good to use the contrast of simpler lines with the
> richer ones.
> A quibblette-I don't know what 'bent to deny' means.
> Kind regards,
> grasshopper
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Arthur" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 8:37 AM
> Subject: New sub: Dry Stone Walls
>
> Dry stone walls
>
> Harsh as the dialect, hewn from millstone grit
> or limestone they piece and parcel-out the shires.
> Wind-fingers probe between stones' ill-fit
> Moss-sodden, lush, under dripping birches,
> or pale as a picked bone, isled with lichen,
> they stride up flanks of fells, true to contour.
> The sinuous mass and loom and sweep of them
> bars the land like silent sentries, grim and dour.
>
> Some mammoth greed conceived this lift and haul
> heft and shift of a task, that bewilders,
> humbles us, such toil and craft in each wall.
> Sack-draped backs hunched under drench of centuries,
> men and stone, bent to deny, heaved like moles,
> to shape these monumental barriers.
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