Page:Rudyard Kipling's verse - Inclusive Edition 1885-1918.djvu/263

 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 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 and shadeless 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.