34. SUSSEX

God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small, Ordained for each one spot should prove Beloved over all; That as He watched Creation's birth So we, in godlike mood, May of our love create our earth And see that it is good.

So one shall Baltic pines content, As one some Surrey glade, Or one the palm-grove's droned lament Before Levuka's trade. Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground—in a fair ground— Yea, Sussex by the sea!

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No tender-hearted garden crowns, No bosomed woods adorn Our blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs, But gnarled and writhen thorn— Bare slopes where chasing shadows skim, And through the gaps revealed Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim Blue goodness of the Weald.

Clean of officious fence or hedge, Half-wild and wholly tame, The wise turf cloaks the white cliff edge As when the Romans came. What sign of those that fought and died At shift of sword and sword? The barrow and the camp abide, The sunlight and the sward.

Here leaps ashore the full Sou'west All heavy-winged with brine, Here lies above the folded crest The Channel's leaden line; And here the sea-fogs lap and cling, And here, each warning each, The sheep-bells and the ship-bells ring Along the hidden beach.

We have no waters to delight Our broad and brookless vales— Only the dewpond on the height Unfed, that never fails,

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Whereby no tattered herbage tells Which way the season flies— Only our close-bit thyme that smells Like dawn in Paradise.

Here through the strong unhampered days The tinkling silence thrills; Or little, lost. Down churches praise The Lord who made the hills; But here the Old Gods guard their round, And, in her secret heart, The heathen kingdom Wilfrid found Dreams, as she dwells, apart.

Though all the rest were all my share, With equal soul I'd see Her nine-and-thirty sisters fair, Yet none more fair than she. 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.

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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 black 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. Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground—in a fair ground— Yea, Sussex by the sea!

Rudyard Kipling.

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35. THE SOUTH COUNTRY

When I am living in the Midlands, That are sodden and unkind, I light my lamp in the evening: My work is left behind; And the great hills of the South Country Come back into my mind.

The great hills of the South Country They stand along the sea, And it's there, walking in the high woods, That I could wish to be, And the men that were boys when I was a boy Walking along with me.

The men that live in North England I saw them for a day: Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, Their skies are fast and grey; From their castle-walls a man may see The mountains far away.

The men that live in West England They see the Severn strong, A-rolling on rough water brown Light aspen leaves along. They have the secret of the Rocks, And the oldest kind of song.

But the men that live in the South Country Are the kindest and most wise, They get their laughter from the loud surf, And the faith in their happy eyes

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Comes surely from our Sister the Spring When over the sea she flies; The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, She blesses us with surprise.

I never get between the pines But I smell the Sussex air; Nor I never come on a belt of sand But my home is there. And along the sky the line of the Downs So noble and so bare.

A lost thing could I never find, Nor a broken thing mend: And I fear I shall be all alone When I get towards the end. Who will there be to comfort me Or who will be my friend?

I will gather and carefully make my friends Of the men of the Sussex Weald, They watch the stars from silent folds, They stiffly plough the field. By them and the God of the South Country My poor soul shall be healed.

If I ever become a rich man, Or if ever I grow to be old, I will build a house with deep thatch To shelter me from the cold, And there shall the Sussex songs be sung And the story of Sussex told.

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I will hold my house in the high wood, Within a walk of the sea, And the men that were boys when I was a boy Shall sit and drink with me.

Hilaire Belloc.