Upper Lambourne

Up the ash tree climbs the ivy
Up the ivy climbs the sun
With a twenty-thousand pattering
Has a valley breeze begun
Feathery ash, neglected elder
Shift the shade and make it run -

Shift the shade toward the nettles
And the nettles set it free
To streak the stained Carrara headstone
Where, in nineteen-twenty-three
He who trained a hundred winners
Paid the Final Entrance Fee

Leathery limbs of Upper Lambourne
Leathery skin from sun and wind
Leathery breeches, spreading stables
Shining saddles left behind -
To the down the string of horses
Moving out of sight and mind

Feathery ash in leathery Lambourne
Waves above the sarsen stone
And Edwardian plantations
So coniferously moan
As to make the swelling downland
Far surrounding, seem their own