Page:Marlborough and other poems, Sorley, 1919.djvu/41

 IX

MARLBOROUGH

I

where the open upland billows down

Into the valley where the river flows,

She is as any other country town,

That little lives or marks or hears or knows.

And she can teach but little. She has not

The wonder and the surging and the roar

Of striving cities. Only things forgot

That once were beautiful, but now no more,

Has she to give us. Yet to one or two

She first brought knowledge, and it was for her

To open first our eyes, until we knew

How great, immeasurably great, we were.

I, who have walked along her downs in dreams,

And known her tenderness, and felt her might,

And sometimes by her meadows and her streams

Have drunk deep-storied secrets of delight,

Have had my moments there, when I have been

Unwittingly aware of something more,

Some beautiful aspect, that I had seen

With mute unspeculative eyes before;

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