Sunday at Musbury Tor

Where the mists blur the line between the earth and the sky

where men carve their names in the grit stone on high

Young Reuben chooses wisely the name he engraves

he will meet her Sunday when he wins the Tor race

Each day he sets off early passion driving him onward

up the incline to Scrubbins while the browbacks trudge downwards

They jeer and they cheer as he swiftly passes them by

each one of them envies his youthful thirst for life

Then it’s back to the echo of the quarrymen’s hammer

cranes relentlessly oblige “more stone” masons clammer

The cogs grind and strip the land of its millennia of beauty

to pave the streets of London for the privileged gentry

One day to go to the race in which he will compete

final character to strike and the engravings complete

His months of training and focus have brought him to this place

Sunday at Musburry Tor he will win more than the race

On the Tor the officials set the distance of the race

whilst the quarrymen below bring the shift to end with haste

Then the cogs stop grinding as they mangle the bone

screams then silence as they carry one of theirs home

She sits and waits on Tor hill for the end of the race

with her fingers the characters in the grit stone she does trace

As she reaches the final letter she sees it isn’t there

sixty years each Sunday she waits for him there