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A mist hangs over Wilmington

And the Long Man hides

In history below the Downs

The barrows and the lives

Of men and women who have farmed

These acres since the land

First yielded to the ploughshare

Where wheat and rape now stand.

Before the church, before the yew

These fields were formed to bear

A harvest for the southern folk

Who dwelt and worshipped here.

They cut a cursus from the west

Deep rutted in the turf

Five thousand years before the cross

Meant anything on earth.

And still it sits pointing the way

To the final resting place

Of seers whose insights formed the minds,

The spirits of the race

Who settled here an age ago

Absorbing all who came

Among these hills and sheepy vales,

Still cosseting the flame.

Passed down to us, who've always known

The Long Man watches over

His people on the Southern Downs -

And those who crop his clover.

Dr Brian Hick summer 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 11.8.23