The cotton mills now remnants
Of their ghostly past they stand,
The clunking looms are silent
That once echoed through the land,
While all those who had slaved and toiled
Within those red-bricked walls,
Now cast upon the scrapheap
And nobody hears their calls.
The distant hills are shrouded
By the mist that will not clear,
As if it rests in sympathy
For all the people here,
No jobs, no work, no hope for them
Through dreary streets they roam,
Their town is like a prison
Yet to them it's still their home.
They look out of their windows
Where the sun does never shine,
Whilst waiting for the winds to change
And searching for a sign,
Alas it never comes and so
These folks shall all grow old,
In the wretched throes of winter
And abandoned to the cold.
ANDREW BLAKEMORE
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-cotton-mills/
