I knew who Belloc was, but I did not know much about him. One of the giants of Edwardian writing and friend of G K Chesterton. I was familiar with Cautionary Tales for Children, of course, perhaps his most famous work today. And then there is that poem The South Country, with its repeated references to “the men who were boys when I was a boy”.
But it wasn’t until I saw a television programme about writers in Sussex that I began to realise the depth of Belloc’s attachment to the Sussex countryside over many years.
That led me to the poem below, from 1923. The ruined windmill and the desolate field suggest the end of a rural way of life that was coming to a close at that time. It’s a lament, really, and a poem that needs to be heard to get the full effect.
Ha’nacker Mill by Hilaire Belloc
Sally is gone that was so kindly,
Sally is gone from Ha’nacker Hill.
And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly
And ever since then the clapper is still. . .
And the sweeps have fallen from Ha’nacker Mill.
Ha’nacker Hill is in Desolation:
Ruin a-top and a field unploughed.
And Spirits that call on a fallen nation,
Spirits that loved her calling aloud,
Spirits abroad in a windy cloud.
Spirits that call and no one answers;
Ha’nacker’s down and England’s done.
Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers,
And never a ploughman under the Sun.
Never a ploughman. Never a one.
The Good Reader 