Mick Smith and William Wordsworth

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Mick Smith, window cleaner and former Snibston colliery worker, reads an excerpt from a William Wordsworth poem written during his time living at Coleorton, North West Leicestershire, just down the road from Snibston. The poem refers to and is inspired by Grace Dieu Priory where Wordsworth used to visit regularly with his family. Grace Diieu Priory is on the Transform Snibston William Wordsworth Trail.

The video and trail are part of poet artist and cultural forager, Paul Conneally's work Spoil Heap Harvest for Transform Snibston.

Here is the Wordsworth poem in full:

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FOR A SEAT IN THE GROVES OF COLEORTON.

          BENEATH yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound,

          Rugged and high, of Charnwood's forest ground

          Stand yet, but, Stranger! hidden from thy view,

          The ivied Ruins of forlorn GRACE DIEU;

          Erst a religious House, which day and night

          With hymns resounded, and the chanted rite:

          And when those rites had ceased, the Spot gave birth

          To honourable Men of various worth:

          There, on the margin of a streamlet wild,

          Did Francis Beaumont sport, an eager child;                

          There, under shadow of the neighbouring rocks,

          Sang youthful tales of shepherds and their flocks;

          Unconscious prelude to heroic themes,

          Heart-breaking tears, and melancholy dreams

          Of slighted love, and scorn, and jealous rage,

          With which his genius shook the buskined stage.

          Communities are lost, and Empires die,

          And things of holy use unhallowed lie;

          They perish;--but the Intellect can raise,          From airy words alone, a Pile that ne'er decays.                                                    William Wordsworth