Oh Marlborough, she's a toun o' touns
We will say that and mair,
We that ha' walked alang her douns
And snuffed her Wiltshire air.
A weary way ye'll hae to tramp
Afore ye match the green
O' Savernake and Barbery Camp
And a' that lies atween!
The infinite beauty of that phrase ... "and a' that lies atween"! The
infinite beauty as it is roared by seven hundred young throats in
unison! For in that phrase there drifts a whole pageant of boyhood--the
sound of cheers as a race is run on a stormy day in March, the tolling
of the Chapel bell, the crack of ball against bat, the sighs of sleep
in a long white dormitory.
But you may say "What is all this to me? I wasn't at Maryborough. I
don't like schoolboys ... they strike me as dirty, noisy, and usually
foul-minded. Why should I go into raptures about such a song, which
seems only to express a highly debatable approval of a certain method of
education?"
If you are asking yourself that sort of question, you are obviously in
very grave need of the tonic properties of this book. For after you have
read it, you will wonder why you ever asked it.