Frank C. Lewis
The Downs, looking from Savernake Forest
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,
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