To close the Hay Time Festival in September 2008 we joined forces with the Sedbergh Festival of Books and Drama and commissioned poet Maggie Norton to create a series of poems inspired by the hay meadows of the Dales. She also worked with Kate Harrison-Whiteside to create a video poem DVD. Copies of Maggie's poems can be obtained from our National Park Centres.
Alan Hartley has also kindly allowed us to use one of his poems for the Hay Time Festival website.
The Meadowlands by Alan Hartley
Keep safe the meadowlands; find them in May,
June or July when you may catch
Their fragrant breath on summer breeze, and see
Their fragile blooms wave in the restless green,
The Cowslip, Heartsease, Sorrel and Selfheal,
Speedwell and Meadowsweet, Clover and Vetch.
Keep safe the meadowlands, the ancient ground,
The founding soil of settled ways,
The land our ancestors reclaimed from bog
And bracken scrub for Fescue and Field Brome,
Ryegrass and Meadow Oat, Cocksfoot and Bent,
Vernal and Darnel and soft Yorkshire Fog.
Keep safe the meadowlands, a gift from heaven,
A bounty that is double given.
In summertime enjoy their beauty, free,
And hold that precious memory in store,
That you may gladden dull, cold, winter days
Walking the sunlit meadowlands once more.
Keep safe the meadowlands, the quiet calm;
Treasure their humble flowerings
And guard their innocent, unworldly ways,
For all they ask is rain on a poor soil
And time to set their seed before
The reaper takes his yearly toll.
Keep safe the meadowlands, if they should go,
Our children’s children may not ever know
To care about
The loss.
From 'The Meadowlands and Other Poems' by Alan Hartley (2006)
