Puck of Pook's Hill

Transcriber's note: this file is based on the 1996 plain ASCII file created by Jo Churcher, Scarborough, Ontario (jchurche@io.org), then proofread against a 1911 reprint of a 1906 edition (Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London). The illustrations are by H.R. Millar.



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 Cæsar 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!