A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems

by A. E. Housman

  XXX

  Sinner’s Rue

  I walked alone and thinking,

  And faint the nightwind blew

  And stirred on mounds at crossways

  The flower of sinner’s rue.

  Where the roads part they bury

  Him that his own hand slays,

  And so the weed of sorrow

  Springs at the four cross ways.

  By night I plucked it hueless,

  When morning broke ’twas blue:

  Blue at my breast I fastened

  The flower of sinner’s rue.

  It seemed a herb of healing,

  A balsam and a sign,

  Flower of a heart whose trouble

  Must have been worse than mine.

  Dead clay that did me kindness,

  I can do none to you,

  But only wear for breastknot

  The flower of sinner’s rue.

  XXXI

  Hell Gate

  Onward led the road again

  Through the sad uncoloured plain

  Under twilight brooding dim,

  And along the utmost rim

  Wall and rampart risen to sight

  Cast a shadow not of night,

  And beyond them seemed to glow

  Bonfires lighted long ago.

  And my dark conductor broke

  Silence at my side and spoke,

  Saying, ‘You conjecture well:

  Yonder is the gate of hell.’

  Ill as yet the eye could see

  The eternal masonry,

  But beneath it on the dark

  To and fro there stirred a spark.

  And again the sombre guide

  Knew my question, and replied:

  ‘At hell gate the damned in turn

  Pace for sentinel and burn.’

  Dully at the leaden sky

  Staring, and with idle eye

  Measuring the listless plain,

  I began to think again.

  Many things I thought of then,

  Battle, and the loves of men,

  Cities entered, oceans crossed,

  Knowledge gained and virtue lost,

  Cureless folly done and said,

  And the lovely way that led

  To the slimepit and the mire

  And the everlasting fire.

  And against a smoulder dun

  And a dawn without a sun

  Did the nearing bastion loom,

  And across the gate of gloom

  Still one saw the sentry go,

  Trim and burning, to and fro,

  One for women to admire

  In his finery of fire.

  Something, as I watched him pace,

  Minded me of time and place,

  Soldiers of another corps

  And a sentry known before.

  Ever darker hell on high

  Reared its strength upon the sky,

  And our footfall on the track

  Fetched the daunting echo back.

  But the soldier pacing still

  The insuperable sill,

  Nursing his tormented pride,

  Turned his head to neither side,

  Sunk into himself apart

  And the hell-fire of his heart.

  But against our entering in

  From the drawbridge Death and Sin

  Rose to render key and sword

  To their father and their lord.

  And the portress foul to see

  Lifted up her eyes on me

  Smiling, and I made reply:

  ‘Met again, my lass,’ said I.

  Then the sentry turned his head,

  Looked, and knew me, and was Ned.

  Once he looked, and halted straight,

  Set his back against the gate,

  Caught his musket to his chin,

  While the hive of hell within

  Sent abroad a seething hum

  As of towns whose king is come

  Leading conquest home from far

  And the captives of his war,

  And the car of triumph waits,

  And they open wide the gates.

  But across the entry barred

  Straddled the revolted guard,

  Weaponed and accoutred well

  From the arsenals of hell;

  And beside him, sick and white,

  Sin to left and Death to right

  Turned a countenance of fear

  On the flaming mutineer.

  Over us the darkness bowed,

  And the anger in the cloud

  Clenched the lightning for the stroke;

  But the traitor musket spoke.

  And the hollowness of hell

  Sounded as its master fell,

  And the mourning echo rolled

  Ruin through his kingdom old.

  Tyranny and terror flown

  Left a pair of friends alone,

  And beneath the nether sky

  All that stirred was he and I.

  Silent, nothing found to say,

  We began the backward way;

  And the ebbing lustre died

  From the soldier at my side,

  As in all his spruce attire

  Failed the everlasting fire.

  Midmost of the homeward track

  Once we listened and looked back;

  But the city, dusk and mute,

  Slept, and there was no pursuit.

  XXXII

  When I would muse in boyhood

  The wild green woods among,

  And nurse resolves and fancies

  Because the world was young,

  It was not foes to conquer,

  Nor sweethearts to be kind,

  But it was friends to die for

  That I would seek and find.

  I sought them far and found them,

  The sure, the straight, the brave,

  The hearts I lost my own to,

  The souls I could not save.

  They braced their belts about them,

  They crossed in ships the sea,

  They sought and found six feet of ground,

  And there they died for me.

  XXXIII

  When the eye of day is shut,

  And the stars deny their beams,

  And about the forest hut

  Blows the roaring wood of dreams,

  From deep clay, from desert rock,

  From the sunk sands of the main,

  Come not at my door to knock,

  Hearts that loved me not again.

  Sleep, be still, turn to your rest

  In the lands where you are laid;

  In far lodgings east and west

  Lie down on the beds you made.

  In gross marl, in blowing dust,

  In the drowned ooze of the sea,

  Where you would not, lie you must,

  Lie you must, and not with me.

  XXXIV

  The First of May

  The orchards half the way

  From home to Ludlow fair

  Flowered on the first of May

  In Mays when I was there;

  And seen from stile or turning

  The plume of smoke would show

  Where fires were burning

  That went out long ago.

  The plum broke forth in green,

  The pear stood high and snowed,

  My friends and I between

  Would take the Ludlow road;

  Dressed to the nines and drinking

  And light in heart and limb,

  And each chap thinking

  The fair was held for him.

  Between the trees in flower

  New friends at fairtime tread

  The way where Ludlow tower

  Stands planted on the dead.

  Our thoughts, a long while after,

  They think, our words they say;

  Theirs now’s the laughter,

  The fair, the first of May.

  Ay, yonder lads are
yet

  The fools that we were then;

  For oh, the sons we get

  Are still the sons of men.

  The sumless tale of sorrow

  Is all unrolled in vain:

  May comes to-morrow

  And Ludlow fair again.

  XXXV

  When first my way to fair I took

  Few pence in purse had I,

  And long I used to stand and look

  At things I could not buy.

  Now times are altered: if I care

  To buy a thing, I can;

  The pence are here and here’s the fair,

  But where’s the lost young man?

  – To think that two and two are four

  And neither five nor three

  The heart of man has long been sore

  And long ’tis like to be.

  XXXVI

  Revolution

  West and away the wheels of darkness roll,

  Day’s beamy banner up the east is borne,

  Spectres and fears, the nightmare and her foal

  Drown in the golden deluge of the morn.

  But over sea and continent from sight

  Safe to the Indies has the earth conveyed

  The vast and moon-eclipsing cone of night,

  Her towering foolscap of eternal shade.

  See, in mid heaven the sun is mounted; hark,

  The belfries tingle to the noonday chime.

  ’Tis silent, and the subterranean dark

  Has crossed the nadir, and begins to climb.

  XXXVII

  Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

  These, in the day when heaven was falling,

  The hour when earth’s foundations fled,

  Followed their mercenary calling

  And took their wages and are dead.

  Their shoulders held the sky suspended;

  They stood, and earth’s foundations stay;

  What God abandoned, these defended,

  And saved the sum of things for pay.

  XXXVIII

  Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough

  The land and not the sea,

  And leave the soldiers at their drill,

  And all about the idle hill

  Shepherd your sheep with me.

  Oh stay with company and mirth

  And daylight and the air;

  Too full already is the grave

  Of fellows that were good and brave

  And died because they were.

  XXXIX

  When summer’s end is nighing

  And skies at evening cloud,

  I muse on change and fortune

  And all the feats I vowed

  When I was young and proud.

  The weathercock at sunset

  Would lose the slanted ray,

  And I would climb the beacon

  That looked to Wales away

  And saw the last of day.

  From hill and cloud and heaven

  The hues of evening died;

  Night welled through lane and hollow

  And hushed the countryside,

  But I had youth and pride.

  And I with earth and nightfall

  In converse high would stand,

  Late, till the west was ashen

  And darkness hard at hand,

  And the eye lost the land.

  The year might age, and cloudy

  The lessening day might close,

  But air of other summers

  Breathed from beyond the snows,

  And I had hope of those.

  They came and were and are not

  And come no more anew;

  And all the years and seasons

  That ever can ensue

  Must now be worse and few.

  So here’s an end of roaming

  On eves when autumn nighs:

  The ear too fondly listens

  For summer’s parting sighs,

  And then the heart replies.

  XL

  Tell me not here, it needs not saying,

  What tune the enchantress plays

  In aftermaths of soft September

  Or under blanching mays,

  For she and I were long acquainted

  And I knew all her ways.

  On russet floors, by waters idle,

  The pine lets fall its cone;

  The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing

  In leafy dells alone;

  And traveller’s joy beguiles in autumn

  Hearts that have lost their own.

  On acres of the seeded grasses

  The changing burnish heaves;

  Or marshalled under moons of harvest

  Stand still all night the sheaves;

  Or beeches strip in storms for winter

  And stain the wind with leaves.

  Possess, as I possessed a season,

  The countries I resign,

  Where over elmy plains the highway

  Would mount the hills and shine,

  And full of shade the pillared forest

  Would murmur and be mine.

  For nature, heartless, witless nature,

  Will neither care nor know

  What stranger’s feet may find the meadow

  And trespass there and go,

  Nor ask amid the dews of morning

  If they are mine or no.

  XLI

  Fancy’s Knell

  When lads were home from labour

  At Abdon under Clee,

  A man would call his neighbour

  And both would send for me.

  And where the light in lances

  Across the mead was laid,

  There to the dances

  I fetched my flute and played.

  Ours were idle pleasures,

  Yet oh, content we were,

  The young to wind the measures,

  The old to heed the air;

  And I to lift with playing

  From tree and tower and steep

  The light delaying,

  And flute the sun to sleep.

  The youth toward his fancy

  Would turn his brow of tan,

  And Tom would pair with Nancy

  And Dick step off with Fan;

  The girl would lift her glances

  To his, and both be mute:

  Well went the dances

  At evening to the flute.

  Wenlock Edge was umbered,

  And bright was Abdon Burf,

  And warm between them slumbered

  The smooth green miles of turf;

  Until from grass and clover

  The upshot beam would fade,

  And England over

  Advanced the lofty shade.

  The lofty shade advances,

  I fetch my flute and play:

  Come, lads, and learn the dances

  And praise the tune to-day.

  To-morrow, more’s the pity,

  Away we both must hie,

  To air the ditty,

  And to earth I.

  THE END

  MORE POEMS

  They say my verse is sad: no wonder.

  Its narrow measure spans

  Rue for eternity, and sorrow

  Not mine, but man’s.

  This is for all ill-treated fellows

  Unborn and unbegot,

  For them to read when they’re in trouble

  And I am not.

  I

  Easter Hymn

  If in that Syrian garden, ages slain,

  You sleep, and know not you are dead in vain,

  Nor even in dreams behold how dark and bright

  Ascends in smoke and fire by day and night

  The hate you died to quench and could but fan,

  Sleep well and see no morning, son of man.

  But if, the grave rent and the stone rolled by,

  At the right hand of majesty on high

  You sit, and sitting so remember yet

  Your tears,
your agony and bloody sweat,

  Your cross and passion and the life you gave,

  Bow hither out of heaven and see and save.

  II

  When Israel out of Egypt came

  Safe in the sea they trod;

  By day in cloud, by night in flame,

  Went on before them God.

  He brought them with a stretched out hand

  Dry-footed through the foam,

  Past sword and famine, rock and sand,

  Lust and rebellion, home.

  I never over Horeb heard

  The blast of advent blow;

  No fire-faced prophet brought me word

  Which way behoved me go.

  Ascended is the cloudy flame,

  The mount of thunder dumb;

  The tokens that to Israel came,

  To me they are not come.

  I see the country far away

  Where I shall never stand;

  The heart goes where no footstep may

  Into the promised land.

  III

  For these of old the trader

  Unpearled the Indian seas,

  The nations of the nadir

  Were diamondless for these;

  A people prone and haggard

  Beheld their lightnings hurled:

  All round, like Sinai, staggered

  The sceptre-shaken world.

  But now their coins are tarnished,

  Their towers decayed away,

  Their kingdom swept and garnished

  For haler kings than they;

  Their arms the rust hath eaten,

  Their statutes none regard:

  Arabia shall not sweeten

  Their dust, with all her nard.

  They cease from long vexation,

  Their nights, their days are done,

  The pale, the perished nation

  That never see the sun;

  From the old deep-dusted annals

  The years erase their tale,

  And round them race the channels

  That take no second sail.

  IV

  The Sage to the Young Man

  O youth whose heart is right,

  Whose loins are girt to gain

  The hell-defended height

  Where Virtue beckons plain;

  Who seest the stark array

  And hast not stayed to count

  But singly wilt assay

  The many-cannoned mount;

  Well is thy war begun;

  Endure, be strong and strive;

  But think not, O my son,

  To save thy soul alive.

  Wilt thou be true and just

  And clean and kind and brave?

  Well; but for all thou dost,