Page:Marlborough and other poems, Sorley, 1919.djvu/150

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A Voice that sings of Now and Then,
Of minstrel joys and tiny towns,
Of flowering thyme and fighting men,
Of Sparta's sands and Marlborough's Downs.


God grant, dear Voice, one day again
We see those Downs in April weather,
And snuff the breeze and smell the rain,
And stand in C House Porch together.

P. 82, line 11: κ.τ.λ. (kai ta loipa), et cetera. Line 13: ὰοιδὸς (aoidos), minstrel. P. 83, line 11: Ilsley, about twenty miles due east of Swindon and on the northern slope of the Berkshire downs. Line 23: the Ogbourne twins, Ogbourne St George and Ogbourne St Andrew, villages in the Valley of the Og, about five and three miles respectively north of Marlborough. Line 26: Aldbourne downs, on the eastern side of the Og and adjoining the Marlborough downs. P. 84, line 4: ἐρατεινή (erateinē), lovely. Line 11: Bedwyn, Great and Little Bedwyn, about a mile from the southeastern corner of Savernake forest and about six miles from Marlborough.

P. 85 (XXXVII). Printed, after the author's death, in The Marlburian, 24 November 1915. Sidney Clayton Woodroffe, killed in action at Hooge on 30 July 1915 and awarded a posthumous V.C., was a school contemporary of the author.

P. 86 (XXXVIII). This prose description is extracted from a letter home. The title has been supplied by the editor. P. 87, line 24: θαυμάσιον ὅσον, wonderfully great.

P. 111. The lines translated from Faust are almost the only example of verse translation by the author. Another specimen, which was found in a school notebook, is a rendering of Horace, Odes, I, 24. It is not likely that he would have printed it himself, but it is quoted here as an epilogue to these notes.


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