Complete Poetical Works of a E Housman Read online

  VI.

  When the lad for longing sighs

  WHEN the lad for longing sighs,

  Mute and dull of cheer and pale,

  If at death’s own door he lies,

  Maiden, you can heal his ail.

  Lovers’ ills are all to buy: 5

  The wan look, the hollow tone,

  The hung head, the sunken eye,

  You can have them for your own.

  Buy them, buy them: eve and morn

  Lovers’ ills are all to sell. 10

  Then you can lie down forlorn;

  But the lover will be well.

  VII.

  When smoke stood up from Ludlow

  WHEN smoke stood up from Ludlow,

  And mist blew off from Teme,

  And blithe afield to ploughing

  Against the morning beam

  I strode beside my team, 5

  The blackbird in the coppice

  Looked out to see me stride,

  And hearkened as I whistled

  The trampling team beside,

  And fluted and replied: 10

  ‘Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;

  What use to rise and rise?

  Rise man a thousand mornings

  Yet down at last he lies,

  And then the man is wise.’ 15

  I heard the tune he sang me,

  And spied his yellow bill;

  I picked a stone and aimed it

  And threw it with a will:

  Then the bird was still. 20

  Then my soul within me

  Took up the blackbird’s strain,

  And still beside the horses

  Along the dewy lane

  It sang the song again: 25

  ‘Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;

  The sun moves always west;

  The road one treads to labour

  Will lead one home to rest,

  And that will be the best.’ 30

  VIII.

  Farewell to barn and stack and tree

  ‘FAREWELL to barn and stack and tree,

  Farewell to Severn shore.

  Terence, look your last at me,

  For I come home no more.

  ‘The sun burns on the half-mown hill, 5

  By now the blood is dried;

  And Maurice amongst the hay lies still

  And my knife is in his side.

  ‘My mother thinks us long away;

  ’Tis time the field were mown. 10

  She had two sons at rising day,

  To-night she ‘ll be alone.

  ‘And here ‘s a bloody hand to shake,

  And oh, man, here ‘s good-bye;

  We ‘ll sweat no more on scythe and rake, 15

  My bloody hands and I.

  ‘I wish you strength to bring you pride,

  And a love to keep you clean,

  And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,

  At racing on the green. 20

  ‘Long for me the rick will wait,

  And long will wait the fold,

  And long will stand the empty plate,

  And dinner will be cold.’

  IX.

  On moonlit heath and lonesome bank

  ON moonlit heath and lonesome bank

  The sheep beside me graze;

  And yon the gallows used to clank

  Fast by the four cross ways.

  A careless shepherd once would keep 5

  The flocks by moonlight there,

  And high amongst the glimmering sheep

  The dead man stood on air.

  They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:

  The whistles blow forlorn, 10

  And trains all night groan on the rail

  To men that die at morn.

  There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,

  Or wakes, as may betide,

  A better lad, if things went right, 15

  Than most that sleep outside.

  And naked to the hangman’s noose

  The morning clocks will ring

  A neck God made for other use

  Than strangling in a string. 20

  And sharp the link of life will snap,

  And dead on air will stand

  Heels that held up as straight a chap

  As treads upon the land.

  So here I ‘ll watch the night and wait 25

  To see the morning shine,

  When he will hear the stroke of eight

  And not the stroke of nine;

  And wish my friend as sound a sleep

  As lads’ I did not know, 30

  That shepherded the moonlit sheep

  A hundred years ago.

  X.

  The Sun at noon to higher air

  March

  THE SUN at noon to higher air,

  Unharnessing the silver Pair

  That late before his chariot swam,

  Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.

  So braver notes the storm-cock sings 5

  To start the rusted wheel of things,

  And brutes in field and brutes in pen

  Leap that the world goes round again.

  The boys are up the woods with day

  To fetch the daffodils away, 10

  And home at noonday from the hills

  They bring no dearth of daffodils.

  Afield for palms the girls repair,

  And sure enough the palms are there,

  And each will find by hedge or pond 15

  Her waving silver-tufted wand.

  In farm and field through all the shire

  The eye beholds the heart’s desire;

  Ah, let not only mine be vain,

  For lovers should be loved again. 20

  XI.

  On your midnight pallet lying

  ON your midnight pallet lying,

  Listen, and undo the door:

  Lads that waste the light in sighing

  In the dark should sigh no more;

  Night should ease a lover’s sorrow; 5

  Therefore, since I go to-morrow,

  Pity me before.

  In the land to which I travel,

  The far dwelling, let me say —

  Once, if here the couch is gravel, 10

  In a kinder bed I lay,

  And the breast the darnel smothers

  Rested once upon another’s

  When it was not clay.

  XII.

  When I watch the living meet

  WHEN I watch the living meet,

  And the moving pageant file

  Warm and breathing through the street

  Where I lodge a little while,

  If the heats of hate and lust 5

  In the house of flesh are strong,

  Let me mind the house of dust

  Where my sojourn shall be long.

  In the nation that is not

  Nothing stands that stood before; 10

  There revenges are forgot,

  And the hater hates no more;

  Lovers lying two and two

  Ask not whom they sleep beside,

  And the bridegroom all night through 15

  Never turns him to the bride.

  XIII.

  When I was one-and-twenty

  WHEN I was one-and-twenty

  I heard a wise man say,

  ‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas

  But not your heart away;

  Give pearls away and rubies 5

  But keep your fancy free.’

  But I was one-and-twenty,

  No use to talk to me.

  When I was one-and-twenty

  I heard him say again, 10

  ‘The heart out of the bosom

  Was never given in vain;

  ’Tis paid with sighs a plenty

  And sold for endless rue.’

  And I am two-and-twenty, 15

  And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

  XIV.

  There pass the careless people

  THERE p
ass the careless people

  That call their souls their own:

  Here by the road I loiter,

  How idle and alone.

  Ah, past the plunge of plummet, 5

  In seas I cannot sound,

  My heart and soul and senses,

  World without end, are drowned.

  His folly has not fellow

  Beneath the blue of day 10

  That gives to man or woman

  His heart and soul away.

  There flowers no balm to sain him

  From east of earth to west

  That ‘s lost for everlasting 15

  The heart out of his breast.

  Here by the labouring highway

  With empty hands I stroll:

  Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,

  Lie lost my heart and soul. 20

  XV.

  Look not in my eyes, for fear

  LOOK not in my eyes, for fear

  Thy mirror true the sight I see,

  And there you find your face too clear

  And love it and be lost like me.

  One the long nights through must lie 5

  Spent in star-defeated sighs,

  But why should you as well as I

  Perish? gaze not in my eyes.

  A Grecian lad, as I hear tell,

  One that many loved in vain, 10

  Looked into a forest well

  And never looked away again.

  There, when the turf in springtime flowers,

  With downward eye and gazes sad,

  Stands amid the glancing showers 15

  A jonquil, not a Grecian lad.

  XVI.

  It nods and curtseys and recovers

  IT nods and curtseys and recovers

  When the wind blows above,

  The nettle on the graves of lovers

  That hanged themselves for love.

  The nettle nods, the winds blows over, 5

  The man, he does not move,

  The lover of the grave, the lover

  That hanged himself for love.

  XVII.

  Twice a week the winter thorough

  TWICE a week the winter thorough

  Here stood I to keep the goal:

  Football then was fighting sorrow

  For the young man’s soul.

  Now in Maytime to the wicket 5

  Out I march with bat and pad:

  See the son of grief at cricket

  Trying to be glad.

  Try I will; no harm in trying:

  Wonder ’tis how little mirth 10

  Keeps the bones of man from lying

  On the bed of earth.

  XVIII.

  Oh, when I was in love with you

  OH, when I was in love with you,

  Then I was clean and brave,

  And miles around the wonder grew

  How well did I behave.

  And now the fancy passes by, 5

  And nothing will remain,

  And miles around they ‘ll say that I

  Am quite myself again.

  XIX.

  The time you won your town the race

  To an Athlete Dying Young

  THE TIME you won your town the race

  We chaired you through the market-place;

  Man and boy stood cheering by,

  And home we brought you shoulder-high.

  To-day, the road all runners come, 5

  Shoulder-high we bring you home,

  And set you at your threshold down,

  Townsman of a stiller town.

  Smart lad, to slip betimes away

  From fields where glory does not stay 10

  And early though the laurel grows

  It withers quicker than the rose.

  Eyes the shady night has shut

  Cannot see the record cut,

  And silence sounds no worse than cheers 15

  After earth has stopped the ears:

  Now you will not swell the rout

  Of lads that wore their honours out,

  Runners whom renown outran

  And the name died before the man. 20

  So set, before its echoes fade,

  The fleet foot on the sill of shade,

  And hold to the low lintel up

  The still-defended challenge-cup.

  And round that early-laurelled head 25

  Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

  And find unwithered on its curls

  The garland briefer than a girl’s.

  XX.

  Oh fair enough are sky and plain

  OH fair enough are sky and plain,

  But I know fairer far:

  Those are as beautiful again

  That in the water are;

  The pools and rivers wash so clean 5

  The trees and clouds and air,

  The like on earth was never seen,

  And oh that I were there.

  These are the thoughts I often think

  As I stand gazing down 10

  In act upon the cressy brink

  To strip and dive and drown;

  But in the golden-sanded brooks

  And azure meres I spy

  A silly lad that longs and looks 15

  And wishes he were I.

  XXI.

  In summertime on Bredon

  Bredon Hill

  IN summertime on Bredon

  The bells they sound so clear;

  Round both the shires they ring them

  In steeples far and near,

  A happy noise to hear. 5

  Here of a Sunday morning

  My love and I would lie,

  And see the coloured counties,

  And hear the larks so high

  About us in the sky. 10

  The bells would ring to call her

  In valleys miles away:

  ‘Come all to church, good people;

  Good people, come and pray.’

  But here my love would stay. 15

  And I would turn and answer

  Among the springing thyme,

  ‘Oh, peal upon our wedding,

  And we will hear the chime,

  And come to church in time.’ 20

  But when the snows at Christmas

  On Bredon top were strown,

  My love rose up so early

  And stole out unbeknown

  And went to church alone. 25

  They tolled the one bell only,

  Groom there was none to see,

  The mourners followed after,

  And so to church went she,

  And would not wait for me. 30

  The bells they sound on Bredon,

  And still the steeples hum.

  ‘Come all to church, good people,’ —

  Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;

  I hear you, I will come. 35

  XXII.

  The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread

  THE STREET sounds to the soldiers’ tread,

  And out we troop to see:

  A single redcoat turns his head,

  He turns and looks at me.

  My man, from sky to sky’s so far, 5

  We never crossed before;

  Such leagues apart the world’s ends are,

  We ‘re like to meet no more;

  What thoughts at heart have you and I

  We cannot stop to tell; 10

  But dead or living, drunk or dry,

  Soldier, I wish you well.

  XXIII.

  The lads in their hundreds

  THE LADS in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,

  There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,

  The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,

  And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

  There’s chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart, 5

  And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,

 
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,

  And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

  I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell

  The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern; 10

  And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell

  And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

  But now you may stare as you like and there’s nothing to scan;

  And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told

  They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man, 15

  The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

  XXIV.

  Say, lad, have you things to do