A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems

by A. E. Housman

  For all the eye could tell

  The world went well.

  Yet well, God knows, it went not,

  God knows, it went awry;

  For me, one flowery Maytime,

  It went so ill that I

  Designed to die.

  And if so long I carry

  The lot that season marred,

  ’Tis that the sons of Adam

  Are not so evil-starred

  As they are hard.

  Young is the blood that yonder

  Succeeds to rick and fold,

  Fresh are the form and favour

  And new the minted mould:

  The thoughts are old.

  XXXV

  Half-way, for one commandment broken,

  The woman made her endless halt,

  And she to-day, a glistering token,

  Stands in the wilderness of salt.

  Behind, the vats of judgment brewing

  Thundered, and thick the brimstone snowed:

  He to the hill of his undoing

  Pursued his road.

  XXXVI

  Here dead lie we because we did not choose

  To live and shame the land from which we sprung.

  Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,

  But young men think it is, and we were young.

  XXXVII

  I did not lose my heart in summer’s even,

  When roses to the moonrise burst apart:

  When plumes were under heel and lead was flying,

  In blood and smoke and flame I lost my heart.

  I lost it to a soldier and a foeman,

  A chap that did not kill me, but he tried;

  That took the sabre straight and took it striking

  And laughed and kissed his hand to me and died.

  XXXVIII

  By shores and woods and steeples

  Rejoicing hearts receive

  Poured on a hundred peoples

  The far-shed alms of eve.

  Her hands are filled with slumber

  For world-wide labourers worn;

  Yet those are more in number

  That know her not from morn.

  Now who sees night for ever,

  He sees no happier sight:

  Night and no moon and never

  A star upon the night.

  XXXIX

  My dreams are of a field afar

  And blood and smoke and shot.

  There in their graves my comrades are,

  In my grave I am not.

  I too was taught the trade of man

  And spelt my lesson plain;

  But they, when I forgot and ran,

  Remembered and remain.

  XL

  Farewell to a name and a number

  Resigned again

  To darkness and silence and slumber

  In blood and pain.

  So time coils round in a ring

  And home comes he

  A soldier cheap to the King

  And dear to me;

  So smothers in blood the burning

  And flaming flight

  Of valour and truth returning

  To dust and night.

  XLI

  He looked at me with eyes I thought

  I was not like to find,

  The voice he begged for pence with brought

  Another man to mind.

  Oh no, lad, never touch your cap;

  It is not my half-crown:

  You have it from a better chap

  That long ago lay down.

  Once he stept out but now my friend

  Is not in marching trim

  And you must tramp to the world’s end

  To touch your cap to him.

  XLII

  A. J. J.

  When he’s returned I’ll tell him – oh,

  Dear fellow, I forgot:

  Time was you would have cared to know,

  But now it matters not.

  I mourn you, and you heed not how;

  Unsaid the word must stay;

  Last month was time enough, but now

  The news must keep for aye.

  Oh, many a month before I learn

  Will find me starting still

  And listening, as the days return,

  For him that never will.

  Strange, strange to think his blood is cold

  And mine flows easy on,

  And that straight look, that heart of gold,

  That grace, that manhood, gone.

  The word unsaid will stay unsaid

  Though there was much to say;

  Last month was time enough: he’s dead,

  The news must keep for aye.

  XLIII

  I wake from dreams and turning

  My vision on the height

  I scan the beacons burning

  About the fields of night.

  Each in its steadfast station

  Inflaming heaven they flare;

  They sign with conflagration

  The empty moors of air.

  The signal-fires of warning

  They blaze, but none regard;

  And on through night to morning

  The world runs ruinward.

  XLIV

  Far known to sea and shore,

  Foursquare and founded well,

  A thousand years it bore,

  And then the belfry fell.

  The steersman of Triest

  Looked where his mark should be,

  But empty was the west

  And Venice under sea.

  From dusty wreck dispersed

  Its stature mounts amain;

  On surer foot than first

  The belfry stands again.

  At to-fall of the day

  Again its curfew tolls

  And burdens far away

  The green and sanguine shoals.

  It looks to north and south,

  It looks to east and west;

  It guides to Lido mouth

  The steersman of Triest.

  Andrea, fare you well;

  Venice, farewell to thee.

  The tower that stood and fell

  Is not rebuilt in me.

  XLV

  Smooth between sea and land

  Is laid the yellow sand,

  And here through summer days

  The seed of Adam plays.

  Here the child comes to found

  His unremaining mound,

  And the grown lad to score

  Two names upon the shore.

  Here, on the level sand,

  Between the sea and land,

  What shall I build or write

  Against the fall of night?

  Tell me of runes to grave

  That hold the bursting wave,

  Or bastions to design

  For longer date than mine.

  Shall it be Troy or Rome

  I fence against the foam,

  Or my own name, to stay

  When I depart for aye?

  Nothing: too near at hand,

  Planing the figured sand,

  Effacing clean and fast

  Cities not built to last

  And charms devised in vain,

  Pours the confounding main.

  XLVI

  The Land of Biscay

  Hearken, landsmen, hearken, seamen,

  to the tale of grief and me

  Looking from the land of Biscay

  on the waters of the sea.

  Looking from the land of Biscay

  over Ocean to the sky

  On the far-beholding foreland

  paced at even grief and I.

  There, as warm the west was burning

  and the east uncoloured cold,

  Down the waterway of sunset

  drove to shore a ship of gold.

  Gold of mast and gold of cordage,

  gold of sail to sight was she,

  And she glassed her ensign golden

  in the waters of the s
ea.

  Oh, said I, my friend and lover,

  take we now that ship and sail

  Outward in the ebb of hues and

  steer upon the sunset trail;

  Leave the night to fall behind us

  and the clouding countries leave:

  Help for you and me is yonder,

  in a haven west of eve.

  Under hill she neared the harbour,

  till the gazer could behold

  On the golden deck the steersman

  standing at the helm of gold,

  Man and ship and sky and water

  burning in a single flame;

  And the mariner of Ocean,

  he was calling as he came:

  From the highway of the sunset

  he was shouting on the sea,

  ‘Landsman of the land of Biscay,

  have you help for grief and me?’

  When I heard I did not answer,

  I stood mute and shook my head:

  Son of earth and son of Ocean,

  much we thought and nothing said.

  Grief and I abode the nightfall,

  to the sunset grief and he

  Turned them from the land of Biscay

  on the waters of the sea.

  XLVII

  O thou that from thy mansion,

  Through time and place to roam,

  Dost send abroad thy children,

  And then dost call them home,

  That men and tribes and nations

  And all thy hand hath made

  May shelter them from sunshine

  In thine eternal shade.

  We now to peace and darkness

  And earth and thee restore

  Thy creature that thou madest

  And wilt cast forth no more.

  XLVIII

  Parta Quies

  Good-night; ensured release,

  Imperishable peace,

  Have these for yours,

  While sea abides, and land,

  And earth’s foundations stand,

  And heaven endures.

  When earth’s foundations flee,

  Nor sky nor land nor sea

  At all is found,

  Content you, let them burn:

  It is not your concern;

  Sleep on, sleep sound.

  ADDITIONAL POEMS

  I

  Atys

  ‘Lydians, lords of Hermus river,

  Sifters of the golden loam,

  See you yet the lances quiver

  And the hunt returning home?’

  ‘King, the star that shuts the even

  Calls the sheep from Tmolus down;

  Home return the doves from heaven,

  And the prince to Sardis town.’

  From the hunting heavy laden

  Up the Mysian road they ride;

  And the star that mates the maiden

  Leads his son to Croesus’ side.

  ‘Lydians, under stream and fountain

  Finders of the golden vein,

  Riding from Olympus mountain,

  Lydians, see you Atys plain?’

  ‘King, I see the Phrygian stranger

  And the guards in hunter’s trim,

  Saviours of thy son from danger;

  Them I see. I see not him.’

  ‘Lydians, as the troop advances,

  – It is eve and I am old –

  Tell me why they trail their lances,

  Washers of the sands of gold.

  ‘I am old and day is ending

  And the wildering night comes on;

  Up the Mysian entry wending,

  Lydians, Lydians, what is yon?’

  Hounds behind their master whining,

  Huntsmen pacing dumb beside,

  On his breast the boar-spear shining,

  Home they bear his father’s pride.

  II

  Oh were he and I together,

  Shipmates on the fleeted main,

  Sailing through the summer weather

  To the spoil of France or Spain.

  Oh were he and I together,

  Locking hands and taking leave,

  Low upon the trampled heather

  In the battle lost at eve.

  Now are he and I asunder

  And asunder to remain;

  Kingdoms are for others’ plunder,

  And content for other slain.

  III

  When Adam walked in Eden young

  Happy, ’tis writ, was he,

  While high the fruit of knowledge hung

  Unbitten on the tree.

  Happy was he the livelong day:

  I doubt ’tis written wrong:

  The heart of man, for all they say,

  Was never happy long.

  And now my feet are tired of rest

  And here they will not stay

  And the soul fevers in my breast

  And aches to be away.

  IV

  It is no gift I tender,

  A loan is all I can;

  But do not scorn the lender;

  Man gets no more from man.

  Oh, mortal man may borrow

  What mortal man can lend;

  And ’twill not end tomorrow,

  Though sure enough ’twill end.

  If death and time are stronger

  A love may yet be strong;

  The world will last for longer,

  But this will last for long.

  V

  Here are the skies, the planets seven,

  And all the starry train:

  Content you with the mimic heaven,

  And on the earth remain.*

  VI

  Ask me no more, for fear I should reply;

  Others have held their tongues, and so can I,

  Hundreds have died, and told no tale before:

  Ask me no more, for fear I should reply –

  How one was true and one was clean of stain

  And one was braver than the heavens are high,

  And one was fond of me: and all are slain.

  Ask me no more, for fear I should reply.

  VII

  He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?

  He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.

  I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder

  And went with half my life about my ways.

  VIII

  Now to her lap the incestuous earth

  The son she bore has ta’en,

  And other sons she brings to birth

  But not my friend again.

  IX

  When the bells justle in the tower

  The hollow night amid,

  Then on my tongue the taste is sour

  Of all I ever did.

  X

  Oh on my breast in days hereafter

  Light the earth should lie,

  Such weight to bear is now the air,

  So heavy hangs the sky.

  XI

  Morning up the eastern stair

  Marches, azuring the air,

  And the foot of twilight still

  Is stolen toward the western sill.

  Blithe the maids go milking, blithe

  Men in hayfields stone the scythe,

  All the land’s alive around

  Except the churchyard’s idle ground.

  —There’s empty acres west and east

  But aye ’tis God’s that bears the least:

  This hopeless garden that they sow

  With the seeds that never grow.

  XIA

  —They shall have breath that never were,

  But he that was shall have it ne’er;

  The unconceived and unbegot

  Shall look on heaven, but he shall not.

  —The heart with many wildfires lit,

  Ice is not so cold as it.

  The thirst that rivers could not lay

  A little dust has quenched for aye;

  And in a fathom’s compass lie


  Thoughts much wider than the sky.

  XII

  Stay, if you list, O passer by the way;

  Yet night approaches: better not to stay.

  I never sigh, nor flush, nor knit the brow,

  Nor grieve to think how ill God made me, now.

  Here, with one balm for many fevers found,

  Whole of an ancient evil, I sleep sound.

  XIII

  Oh turn not in from marching

  To taverns on the way:

  The drought and thirst and parching

  A little dust will lay

  And take desire away.

  Oh waste no words a wooing

  The soft sleep to your bed;

  She is not worth pursuing,

  You will so soon be dead,

  And death will serve instead.

  XIV

  ‘Oh is it the jar of nations,

  The noise of a world run mad,

  The fleeing of earth’s foundations?’

  Yes, yes; lie quiet, my lad.

  ‘Oh is it my country calling,

  And whom will my country find

  To shore up the sky from falling?’

  My business; never you mind.

  ‘Oh is it the newsboys crying

  Lost battle, retreat, despair,

  And honour and England dying?’

  Well, fighting cock, what if it were?

  The devil this side of the darnels

  Is having a dance with man,

  And quarrelsome chaps in charnels

  Must bear it as best they can.

  XV

  ’Tis five years since, ‘An end,’ said I,

  ‘I’ll march no further, time to die.

  All’s lost; no worse has heaven to give.’

  Worse it has given, and yet I live.

  I shall not die to-day, no fear:

  I shall live yet for many a year,

  And see worse ills and worse again,

  And die of age and not of pain.

  When God would rear from earth aloof

  The blue height of the hollow roof

  He sought him pillars sure and strong

  And ere he found them sought them long.

  The stark steel splintered from the thrust,