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French Gate is a handsome, steep ascent
While The Backs rush high and low.
The station is haunted by the memory of trains and
The market square's a wakeful wreck of metal.
Your castle and abbey are ragged silhouettes and
Around you lies a cloak of bleak, beautiful moor.
I play the scant role of occasional visitor:
It's taken me decades to appreciate you.
You nearly took my father
As he walked your boundary twenty years ago.
My mother lies scattered on your river bank.
Northern market town,
You're shaded by the everyday darkness,
Of history and the workaday.