<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">The Downs, Looking from Savernake Forest</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">WITH eager steps I climbed the hill</p><p class="line">Ploughed with deep, age-old furrows, till</p><p class="line">I reached the forest's edge and gazed</p><p class="line">Across the low red town smoke-hazed.</p><p class="line">Upon the downs, windy and bare.</p><p class="line">Ridge upon ridge unending. There</p><p class="line">No sound is heard save only these,</p><p class="line">The wind's wild song 'mid lonely trees,</p><p class="line">The echo of sheep-bells, and the cry</p><p class="line">Of peewits circling in the sky.</p><p class="line">Back in the dawn of time on earth.</p><p class="line">Before she brought her sons to birth.</p><p class="line">You stood the same- as now you stand—</p><p class="line">Untroubled, vast, majestic, grand:</p><p class="line">Only you had not heard the tramp,</p><p class="line">Old Hackpen Hill and Barbury Camp,</p><p class="line">Of many an army passing by</p><p class="line">Under a blue and cloud-flecked sky.</p><p class="line">And happy they who fell in fight</p><p class="line">Upon your clear and wind-swept height:</p><p class="line">With thunder for their requiem</p><p class="line">And the dark clouds to weep for them,</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">They dream the centuries away</p><p class="line">Through changeless night and changeless day.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">O Downs, I think it good that you</p><p class="line">Have given your secret to the few</p><p class="line">Who love you and can understand.</p><p class="line">You are not as this other land</p><p class="line">Trodden by all who chance to pass:</p><p class="line">Only we tread your close-cropped grass</p><p class="line">Who love to feel the beat of rain</p><p class="line">Washing away all town-born pain:</p><p class="line">Wind: and the heights whence one may see</p><p class="line">The littleness of man: and we</p><p class="line">There feel at last that we are free.</p></div></body></html> · Great War