The Road to Wigan Piers Plowman

It’s the late 14th century in the north of England, and there’s trouble at t’mill in this epic poem newly translated by Eric Blah…

Then began I to dream a marvellous dream,
That I was in a wilderness wist I not where.
As I looked to the east right into the sun,
I saw a monstrous scenery of slag-heaps,
Piled scrap-iron, foul canals, and paths of cindery mud,
A deep dale beneath, criss-crossed by the prints of clogs…