This Saturday's Sussex event...

The Amberley Wildbrooks

If you would like to attend this Saturday's talk, walk and sing-along in Amberley, Sussex please do e-mail the organisers at:

thehilairebellocblog@gmail.com

It promises to be a splendid day and the Amberley Wildbrooks are very beautiful at the moment. 

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 

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, 

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, 

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, 

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 

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; 

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 

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: 

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 

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 healed. 

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 

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.

The South Country by Hilaire Belloc