Lambourn

An old road, an ancient way,

Of stories told of other days,

 

The downland rolls like an ocean deep.

Great waves of hills that have gone to sleep.

 

Unseen on high the skylarks sing,

Where buzzards soar on graceful wing,

 

Their mewing at the break of day

Melds with the horses far away.

 

The rolling hills and swaying corn,

The half moon sits at the edge of dawn.

 

And there in the distance I hear a sound

The rhythmic pounding in the ground,

 

For Lambourn too is the home of the horse,

The Thoroughbred is trained of course.

 

A right of passage the Ridgeway track

White as a scar on a giants back.

 

White horse reclines in mystic sleep,

He guards a secret buried deep,

 

His crest is the grass, his body green

His call is felt, but never seen.

 

Flint faced cottages hidden deep

Upon the windows horseshoes keep,

 

Silent they sit on leafy lanes,

Shaded in summer by swaying limes.

 

The white horse God is ever here

The racing God is ever near.

 

Caroline Baldock © 2018