Wharfedale’s Journey Poem by C Richard Miles

Yorkshire’s youthful river Wharfe starts as springwater spills
By Oughtershaw and Beckermonds and Yockenthwaite so fair
Past Deepdale’s chasm, on its course until the stream surveys
Hubberholme’s squat, ancient church sat nestled deep in hills,
Beloved of JB Priestley, whose ashes now lie there,
Who sought his inspiration for novels and for plays
When wandering through the graveyard, whose springtime daffodils
Bring sprays of splashing brightness to landscape bleak and bare
Where lonesome Langstrothdale dies out and Wharfedale starts its race
To splash its way from Buckden, past tumbling, riven gills,
Meandering down past Starbotton, in sluggish pools to where
The kingfisher and heron hunt for carp and bream and dace.

Wild Wharfe next wends to Kettlewell, whose babbling brooklet fills
The ever-rushing river with welcome water, cool and clear,
That sprang from dark resurgences outwelling at the base
Of limestone cliffs to tumble down the waterfall-filled ghylls.
The surging stream of Skirfare joins the river running here
Between the crag of Kilnsey’s overhanging, snub-nosed face
And Conistone’s high moorland fields, which dropp in steps from hills
As old as history itself till, cut by ice-age glacier,
They bowed to nature’s sandpaper, which chisels and abrades
All in its path, carved naturally by non-pneumatic drills.
The ice stood back admiring handicraft, which would appear
As landscape sculptured into statuesque, stone colonnades.

Past Grass Wood next, in leafy glades, whose sombre silence stills
The watercourse to sink in pebble-banks to disappear
But only for instant, and then return, in hurried haste,
To hurtle on to Grassington, past precursor Strid - Ghaistrill’s
And sweep beneath the steep-arched bridge beneath each pillared pier
To Linton Falls where, squeezed between the rocks, the waters pace
To power whirling waterwheels to run the woollen mills
And surge beyond to Hebden, whose narrow bridge stands clear,
Suspended on its fragile wires above the Wharfe’s fast race,
Then bounding on to Burnsall, whose green runs ’neath high hills
Adorned with towering maypole, below the Fell severe,
Past fields of waving meadowgrass, where sheep and cattle graze.

Still swift past humble Hartlington, above which Troller’s Ghylls
Dark secrets rest, where death-portending barguest may appear
Near Appletreewick village to where Dibb’s dribbling trickle plays
By Drebley’s tiny hamlet on the bank opposite Howgill’s.
Barden Bridge approaches and the Strid is getting near
Just after Barden tower, now restored to former days.
The river now restricted in a chasm, whose terror chills
Since many souls have perished when they tumbled deep in here
Where seething, grasping whirlpools call and lure with deadly lays
Like those once sung by sirens, charming tars against their wills
To swim and thus foolhardy ramblers try to jump without a fear
But plunge in undercurrents, there to end their mortal days.

The Wharfe winds on, more tranquil now, in search of looms and mills
In more industrial landscapes, which still lie far from here
As Bolton Abbey’s ruins sternly cast a frowning face
On daytrippers and tourists who cavort and catch their thrills
By splashing in the river, crossing steppingstones which rear
Out of the waters, but the Wharfe can’t stay and laze
As it forges on past Addingham and under Ilkley’s hills
Whose anthem still is sounded with those voices, loud and clear,
As longing, yearning Yorkshire folk hark back to former days
And sing “On Ilkla Moor baht ’at” whose cheerful chorus thrills
Those scattered far from home, whom Wharfedale’s charms endear,
Till, leaving Chevin’s slopes behind, the Wharfe can end its race.