Up on the Downs

Up on the Downs by John Masefield 1878-1967

Up on the downs the red-eyed kestrels hover,
Eyeing the grass.
The field-mouse flits like a shadow into cover
As their shadows pass.

Men are burning the gorse on the down’s shoulder;

A drift of smoke
Glitters with fire and hangs, and the skies smoulder,
And the lungs choke.

Once the tribe did thus on the downs, on these downs, burning
Men in the frame,
Crying to the gods of the downs till their brains were turning
And the gods came.

And to-day on the downs, in the wind, the hawks, the grasses,
In blood and air,
Something passes me and cries as it passes,
On the chalk downland bare.

     As I have done for over a year now, I am beginning the month with a poem.  This month however marks a slightly new tack; previously, using John Clare's 'Shepherd's Calendar', I have been able to couple the poem with the month.  I suspect this will now prove more difficult to do, so I have decided to simply post poems I like.

     I associate this poem with the Uffington White Horse, high upon the downs in south Oxfordshire.  As far as I know there is no other connection other than it was chosen by Sir John Betjeman for his tv anthology 'The Queen's Realm' of 1977, and coupled with aerial shots of the horse, and of other chalk figures.  (The poem was read, to great effect, by the South African born actress Janet Suzman.)  

     I pass the horse a few times a year as I travel between the Infernal city and London, and I try and make the point of looking from the train as we pass.  It is after all the oldest hill figure in Europe.  Twice now I have pointed the horse's presence to groups of American tourists but to little effect.