The Run Of The Downs

The Weald is good, the Downs are best,
I'll give you the run of 'em, East to West.
Beachy Head and Winddoor Hill,
They were once and they are still.
Firle Mount Caburn and Mount Harry
Go back as far as sums '1l carry.
Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury Ring
They have looked on many a thing,
And what those two have missed between 'em
I reckon Truleigh Hill has seen 'em.
Highden, Bignor and Duncton Down
Knew Old England before the Crown.
Linch Down, Treyford and Sunwood
Knew Old England before the Flood;
And when you end on the Hampshire side,
Butser's old as Time and Tide.
The Downs are sheep, the Weald is corn,
You be glad you are Sussex born!

Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. His notable works include the novels 'The Jungle Book,' 'Kim,' and the poem 'If—.' Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, making him the youngest recipient of the award.

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Sussex

God gave all men all earth to love,
But, since our hearts are small
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Beloved over all;
That, as He watched Creation's birth,
So we, in godlike mood,
May of our love create our earth
And see that it is good.

So one shall Baltic pines content,
As one some Surrey glade,
Or one the palm-grove's droned lament
Before Levuka's Trade.
Each to his choice, and I rejoice
The lot has fallen to me
In a fair ground-in a fair ground,
Yea, Sussex by the sea!

No tender-hearted garden crowns,
No bosonied woods adorn
Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs,
But gnarled and writhen thorn,
Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim,
And, through the gaps revealed,
Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim,
B...

Rudyard

Puck's Song

See you the ferny ride that steals
Into the oak-woods far?
O that was whence they hewed the keels
That rolled to Trafalgar.

And mark you where the ivy clings
To Bayham's mouldering walls?
O there we cast the stout railings
That stand around St. Paul's.

See you the dimpled track that runs
All hollow through the wheat?
O that was where they hauled the guns
That smote King Philip's fleet.

(Out of the Weald, the secret Weald,
Men sent in ancient years,
The horse-shoes red at Flodden Field,
The arrows at Poitiers!)

See you our little mill that clacks,
So busy by the brook?
She has ground her corn and paid her
Ever since Domesday Book.

See you our stilly woods of oak,
And the dread ditch beside?
O that was ...

Rudyard

A Three-Part Song

I'm just in love with all these three,
The Weald and the Marsh and the Down country.
Nor I don't know which I love the most,
The Weald or the Marsh or the white Chalk coast!

I've buried my heart in a ferny hill,
Twix' a liddle low shaw an' a great high gill.
Oh hop-bine yaller an' wood-smoke blue,
I reckon you'll keep her middling true!

I've loosed my mind for to out and run
On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun.
Oh Romney Level and Brenzett reeds,
I reckon you know what my mind needs!

I've given my soul to the Southdown grass,
And sheep-bells tinkled where you pass.
Oh Firle an' Ditchling an' sails at sea,
I reckon you keep my soul for me!

Rudyard

Bramber.

    Before the downs in their great horse-shoes rise,
        I know a village where the Adur runs,
        Blown by sweet winds and by beneficent suns
    Visited and made ripe beneath kind skies.
    Light and delight are in the children's eyes
        And there the mothers sit, the fortunate ones,
        Blest in their daughters, happy in their sons,
    And the old men are beautiful and wise.

    There stand the downs, great, close, tall, friendly, still,
    Linked up by grassy saddles, hill on hill,
        And steep the village in unending peace
    And to the north the plains in order lie,
    Heavy with crops and woods alternately
        And lively with low sounds that never cease.

Edward Shanks

Very Many People

On the Downs, in the Weald, on the Marshes,
I heard the Old Gods say:
Here come Very Many People:
We must go away.

They take our land to delight in,
But their delight destroys.
They flay the turf from the sheep-walk.
They load the Denes with noise.

They burn coal in the woodland.
They seize the oast and the mill.
They camp beside Our dew-ponds.
They mar the clean-flanked hill.

They string a clamorous Magic
To fence their souls from thought,
Till Our deep-breathed Oaks are silent,
And Our muttering Downs tell nought.

They comfort themselves with neighbours.
They cannot bide alone.
It shall be best for their doings
When We Old Gods are gone.

Farewell to the Downs and the Marshes,
And the W...

Rudyard

Alnaschar And The Oxen

There's a pasture in a valley where the hanging woods divide,
And a Herd lies down and ruminates in peace;
Where the pheasant rules the nooning, and the owl the twilight tide,
And the war-cries of our world die out and cease.
Here I cast aside the burden that each weary week-day brings
And, delivered from the shadows I pursue,
On peaceful, postless, Sabbaths I consider Weighty Things
Such as Sussex Cattle feeding in the dew!
At the gate beside the river where the trouty shallows brawl,
I know the pride that Lobengula felt,
When he bade the bars be lowered of the Royal Cattle Kraal,
And fifteen miles of oxen took the veldt.
From the walls of Bulawayo in unbroken file they came
To where the Mount of Council cuts the blue . . .
I have only six and twenty, but the principle...

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