The Song of the Ungirt Runners
The Song of the Ungirt Runners
Original Text
Charles Hamilton Sorley. Marlborough and other Poems. 4th edition. Cambridge: University Press, 1919: 59. PR 6037 O7M3 1919 Robarts Library
1We swing ungirded hips,
2And lightened are our eyes,
3The rain is on our lips,
4We do not run for prize.
5We know not whom we trust
6Nor whitherward we fare,
7But we run because we must
8 Through the great wide air.
9The waters of the seas
10Are troubled as by storm.
11The tempest strips the trees
12And does not leave them warm.
13Does the tearing tempest pause?
14Do the tree-tops ask it why?
15So we run without a cause
16 'Neath the big bare sky.
17The rain is on our lips,
18We do not run for prize.
19But the storm the water whips
20And the wave howls to the skies.
21The winds arise and strike it
22And scatter it like sand,
23And we run because we like it
24 Through the broad bright land.
Publication Start Year
1916
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1998.
Rhyme