Her winds still whisper names forgotten,
And her rivers now hum hymns of home’s embrace.
Chimney tops rise, silent like prayers unanswered,
And cracked cobbles mutter stories of long ago.
Still held together by time’s drystone hands,
The home we once knew, now overthrown.

Now, not a place of darkness and gloom,
As strangers still believe.
Nor a land of milky tea-stained dreams,
On television, make-believe.
But a land of quiet, enduring kindness,
A community struggling to step into the light.

Once the heart of those satanic mills,
Where God's light couldn’t pierce the smog.
Where collieries once bellowed,
Now only shadows drift in the dust.
The past still clings to soot-stained brick,
And the sound of a church bell is lost.

The hands that tiled the land and toiled in the mines,
Their stories, as sacred as ancient scripts.
A warm hearth and tender home awaited them,
When the day came to harvest their gains.
No postcode envy, no airs to flaunt.
Just honest toil and a well-earned pint.

Now her sons and daughters must take their turn,
With the white rose spirit sewn deep within.
Drawn by echoes of the past that tug them on,
Through weary towns and streets, time has long withdrawn.
Her landscapes heal as slag turns lush green
Yet for her children, no future can be seen.
But beneath that distant clock tower’s unyielding gaze,
Whitehall turns aside, our cries adrift in the haze.

While some sought a life beyond these hills,
Others remain bound by chains forged in those mills.
Some still chase the light in a bid to break free,
The rest are still bound by what they must be.
In every heart, hiraeth burns; an untold fire,
Of a home remembered and dreams that never tire.
Yet in every soul, a flicker remains,
The power to shatter these chains of past shame.
As divergent paths are cast by fate’s bellowing call,
A steadfast home awaits beyond these shadows’ thrall.
For deep in our bones the past whispers its plea,
While hope grows ever stronger as darkness comes to be.