The poem
High dormers are rising So sharp and surprising, And ponticum edges The driveways of gravel; Stone houses from ledges Look down on ravines. The vision can travel From gable to gable, Italianate mansion And turretted stable, A sylvan expansion So varied and jolly Where laurel and holly Commingle their greens.
Serene on a Sunday The sun glitters hotly O'er mills that on Monday With engines will hum. By tramway excursion To Dore and to Totley In search of diversion The millworkers come; But in our arboreta The sounds are discreeter Of shoes upon stone - The worshippers wending To welcoming chapel, Companioned or lone; And over a pew there See loveliness lean, As Eve shows her apple Through rich bombazine; What love is born new there In blushing eighteen!
Your prospects will please her, The iron-king's daughter, Up here on Broomhill; Strange Hallamshire, County Of dearth and of bounty, Of brown tumbling water And furnace and mill. Your own Ebenezer Looks down from his height On back street and alley And chemical valley Laid out in the light; On ugly and pretty Where industry thrives In this hill-shadowed city Of razors and knives.
Reprinted with the permission of John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.