For the Grieg Centenary

The fells are jagged in the shining air; the wind

Sharpens itself like a knife on the rough edges:

The sky is blue as ice, and clouds from the sea

Splinter above the land

And drive against the rocks in thin steel wedges.

This of all England is the place to remember Grieg:

Here where the Norsemen foraged down the dales,

Crossing the sea with the migrant redwing,

Thieving heifer and yow and teg,

Leaving their names scotched on the flanks of the hills.

Leaving also the crackling northern tongues,

The dialect crisp with the click of the wind

In the thorns of a wintry dyke,

So that Solveig sings

In the words which bind the homes of Cumberland.

Therefore let Solveig sing in the western dales

When the frost is on the pikes, and the raven builds again

Its nest in February; let Crinkle Crags

Be thumped by the humpbacked trolls,

And the voice of Grieg ring loud through the sound of the sea and the rain.

NORMAN NICHOLSON