| |
| WHEN I am living in the Midlands | |
| That are sodden and unkind, | |
| I light my lamp in the evening: | |
| My work is left behind; | |
| And the great hills of the South Country | 5 |
| Come back into my mind. | |
| |
| The great hills of the South Country | |
| They stand along the sea; | |
| And it ’s there walking in the high woods | |
| That I could wish to be, | 10 |
| And the men that were boys when I was a boy | |
| Walking along with me. | |
| |
| The men that live in North England | |
| I saw them for a day: | |
| Their hearts are set upon the waste fells, | 15 |
| Their skies are fast and grey; | |
| From their castle-walls a man may see | |
| The mountains far away. | |
| |
| The men that live in West England | |
| They see the Severn strong, | 20 |
| A-rolling on rough water brown | |
| Light aspen leaves along. | |
| They have the secret of the Rocks, | |
| And the oldest kind of song. | |
| |
| But the men that live in the South Country | 25 |
| Are the kindest and most wise, | |
| They get their laughter from the loud surf, | |
| And the faith in their happy eyes | |
| Comes surely from our Sister the Spring | |
| When over the sea she flies; | 30 |
| The violets suddenly bloom at her feet, | |
| She blesses us with surprise. | |
| |
| I never get between the pines | |
| But I smell the Sussex air; | |
| Nor I never come on a belt of sand | 35 |
| But my home is there. | |
| And along the sky the line of the Downs | |
| So noble and so bare. | |
| |
| A lost thing could I never find, | |
| Nor a broken thing mend: | 40 |
| And I fear I shall be all alone | |
| When I get towards the end. | |
| Who will there be to comfort me | |
| Or who will be my friend? | |
| |
| I will gather and carefully make my friends | 45 |
| Of the men of the Sussex Weald, | |
| They watch the stars from silent folds, | |
| They stiffly plough the field. | |
| By them and the God of the South Country | |
| My poor soul shall be heal’d. | 50 |
| |
| If I ever become a rich man, | |
| Or if ever I grow to be old, | |
| I will build a house with deep thatch | |
| To shelter me from the cold, | |
| And there shall the Sussex songs be sung | 55 |
| And the story of Sussex told. | |
| |
| I will hold my house in the high wood | |
| Within a walk of the sea, | |
| And the men that were boys when I was a boy | |
| Shall sit and drink with me. | 60 |
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