Winding through country lanes, secret and narrow,
I left behind the pastoral parish of Bromsberrow,
and climbed the grassy banks of Chase End Hill,
passing by steep fields and scattered woods until
I gained the summit, and turned to survey the southerly view;
the Severn Vale, the Cotswold ridge, and May Hill too.
Now turning north I came to the hamlet of White Leaved Oak.
What, I wondered, did this curious name evoke?
From here I climbed the hill of Ragged Stone,
More hikers about now, I was no longer alone
to enjoy the prominence of its twin grassy peaks,
the ideal kind of summit that the hill walker seeks.
Then northward I travelled along this pre-Cambrian range,
a succession of hills, an outline slow to change,
and penetrated the ramparts of an ancient fort
now known as British Camp with its encircling earthworks wrought
by our earliest ancestors in defence of every manner of threat.
For these imposing memorials we are forever in their debt.
It was time to strike north again, through fields of bluebells,
leaving Wynd’s Point and traversing the ridge above Malvern Wells.
Looking west, range upon range of wooded hills stretched to the mountains above Hay.
And eastwards, across the plains of middle England, on this crystal clear day
I could see the the grey ridge of Edge Hill, before dropping to the final pass
that separates me from the hills I have reserved until last.
Worcestershire Beacon and North Hill stand tall over Great Malvern town.
They can be reached up a valley where sycamores have grown.
As I gained the ridge I turned right for North Hill;
the panorama from there was to be my final thrill.
North Hill’s swelling slopes curve steeply and greenly down
into the complicating centre of our fair town.
I know you now, fair hills, so still and monumental.
I love your profile and your scenery, so green and softly gentle.
You are our permanent backcloth, a benign sort of domination,
and a marvel of the miracle of Nature’s creation.