Puck of Pook's Hill, Page 2
Rudyard Kipling
PUCK'S SONG
_See you the dimpled track that runs,_ _All hollow through the wheat?_ _O that was where they hauled the guns_ _That smote King Philip's fleet._
_See you our little mill that clacks,_ _So busy by the brook?_ _She has ground her corn and paid her tax_ _Ever since Domesday Book._
_See you our stilly woods of oak,_ _And the dread ditch beside?_ _O that was where the Saxons broke,_ _On the day that Harold died._
_See you the windy levels spread_ _About the gates of Rye?_ _O that was where the Northmen fled,_ _When Alfred's ships came by._
_See you our pastures wide and lone,_ _Where the red oxen browse?_ _O there was a City thronged and known,_ _Ere London boasted a house._
_And see you, after rain, the trace_ _Of mound and ditch and wall?_ _O that was a Legion's camping-place,_ _When Caesar sailed from Gaul._
_And see you marks that show and fade,_ _Like shadows on the Downs?_ _O they are the lines the Flint Men made,_ _To guard their wondrous towns._
_Trackway and Camp and City lost,_ _Salt Marsh where now is corn;_ _Old Wars, old Peace, old Arts that cease,_ _And so was England born!_
_She is not any common Earth,_ _Water or wood or air,_ _But Merlin's Isle of Gramarye,_ _Where you and I will fare._
WELAND'S SWORD
