Ode to the Yorkshire Dales by C. Buddingh'

Ode to the Yorkshire Dales Every human being, even the most doubting Thomas, has still some sort of image of paradise: for me it is that piece of England between Ingleton and Leyburn, Grassington and Hawes - when I'm there I almost feel the tendency to think: Yes, the           world must have a divine origin. Which is nonsense, of course: millions of folks would say: what? all those hills, those bare moors? nowhere a nice bit of crumpet. Only silly sheep. what a stuffy, boring, drab loneliness! I would totally waste away within a week here - and           that someone calls a kind of Eden? But talking about gardens of Eden is a bit like love: one blows his brains out for some creature another would not want to be buried with for all the money in the world. When I think of the hordes on the Costa del Sol my           hair stands on end all over again. It remains of course a question of  infantile longings, fears, illusions: even our first three years here also have a lot to answer for - if you are crazy about space and intimacy all at the same time, if you experience a void as panoramic and commotion as a void,           you are ripe for the Yorkshire Dales. Everything there is a bit greyish, dusty, veined with browns and hazy blues, even in spring it already looks a little like autumn, it is an awfully beautiful country, but not pleasant, rather more dour, closed in on itself - a country like a man who never slaps you on the back,           but whom you always can count on. And so it turns out yet again that also in your little paradise you are after all searching for yourself: the picture of an ideal superego, that is kind and obliging to your Id, a sort of father and mother in one, who never leave you - Oh, donkeys of Arncliffe, when shall I see          you grazing on your green again?

Kees Buddingh' [1918-1985]

(Original title: 'Ode aan de Yorkshire Dales' - From the collection 'Het houdt op met zachtjes regenen' - 1978 - Uitgeverij De Bezige Bij - Amsterdam)