Puck’s Song

See you the ferny ride that steals
Into the oak-woods far?
O that was whence they hewed the keels
That rolled to Trafalgar

And mark you where the ivy clings
To Bayham's mouldering walls?
O there we cast the stout railings
That stand around St. Paul's

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

(Out of the Weald, the secret Weald
Men sent in ancient years
The horse-shoes red at Flodden Field
The arrows at Poitiers!)

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!