Where learning and lamps are not,
And the pale downs tumble, blind, chalk-faced,
And the brooding churches squat.
Roads north of Cambridge march through a plain
Level like the traitor sea.
It will swallow its ships, and turn and smile again,
The insatiable fen country.
Lest the downs and the fens should eat Cambridge up,
And its towers be tossed and thrown,
And its rich wine drunk from its broken cup,