Reminders.
Rain washed to fresh Cornish air
still smellsl of historic unfairness.
Hinterland littered with shafts,
now leveled, age -old flat lodes
make for visitors much pleasure
as unrushed they enjoy the stroll.
Beauty abounds, yet tourists
who see through pit walls hear
sounds of past youth trapped in
earth-falls and gripped fast in fear.
Paths used in heaving carts heavy
with mine-waste, boys\' backs bound
with thick ropes these worked-out pits
leave little ghosts of those lost thousands
who met bitter ends when children, unfitted
for mining, fell within hell\'s blackened mouth.
Heartache discolours a land\'s
heritage when sad child abuse
of bal-maidens and young lads
add reminders of shifts\' ruthless
length while tired almost to death
shoe-less torn feet stumbled home
with but a pittance, eyes half closed
bent to breadless tables children slept
often still clothed before starting again.
Hard those days when the rich grew
fat on young backs of martyred poor.