WITH eager steps I climbed the hill
Ploughed with deep, age-old furrows, till
I reached the forest's edge and gazed
Across the low red town smoke-hazed.
Upon the downs, windy and bare.
Ridge upon ridge unending. There
No sound is heard save only these,
The wind's wild song 'mid lonely trees,
The echo of sheep-bells, and the cry
Of peewits circling in the sky.
Back in the dawn of time on earth.
Before she brought her sons to birth.
You stood the same- as now you stand—
Untroubled, vast, majestic, grand:
Only you had not heard the tramp,
Old Hackpen Hill and Barbury Camp,
Of many an army passing by
Under a blue and cloud-flecked sky.
And happy they who fell in fight
Upon your clear and wind-swept height:
With thunder for their requiem
And the dark clouds to weep for them,
O Downs, I think it good that you
Have given your secret to the few
Who love you and can understand.
You are not as this other land
Trodden by all who chance to pass:
Only we tread your close-cropped grass
Who love to feel the beat of rain
Washing away all town-born pain:
Wind: and the heights whence one may see
The littleness of man: and we
There feel at last that we are free.
