Choose ye your need from Thames to Tweed,
And I will choose instead
Such lands as lie 'twixt Rake and Rye,
Black Down and Beachy Head.
I will go out against the sun
Where the rolled scarp retires,
And the Long Man of Wilmington
Looks naked toward the shires;
And east till doubling Rother crawls
To find the fickle tide,
By dry and sea-forgotten walls,
Our ports of stranded pride.
I will go north about the shaws
And the deep ghylls that breed
Huge oaks and old, the which we hold
No more than Sussex weed;
Or south where windy Piddinghoe's
Begilded dolphin veers
And red beside wide-banked Ouse
Lie down our Sussex steers.
So to the land our hearts we give
Till the sure magic strike,
And Memory, Use, and Love make live
Us and our fields alike
That deeper than our speech and thought*
Beyond our reason's sway,
Clay of the pit whence we were wrought
Yearns to its fellow-clay.
God gives all men all earth to love,
But since man's heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
Beloved over all.
Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/264
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246
RUDYARD KIPLING'S VERSE
