Complete Poetical Works of a E Housman Read online

  WITH rue my heart is laden

  For golden friends I had,

  For many a rose-lipt maiden

  And many a lightfoot lad.

  By brooks too broad for leaping 5

  The lightfoot boys are laid;

  The rose-lipt girls are sleeping

  In fields where roses fade.

  LV.

  Westward on the high-hilled plains

  WESTWARD on the high-hilled plains

  Where for me the world began,

  Still, I think, in newer veins

  Frets the changeless blood of man.

  Now that others lads than I 5

  Strip to bathe on Severn shore,

  They, no help, for all they try,

  Tread the mill I trod before.

  There, when hueless is the west

  And the darkness hushes wide, 10

  Where the lad lies down to rest

  Stands the troubled dream beside.

  There, on thoughts that once were mine,

  Day looks down the eastern steep,

  And the youth at morning shine 15

  Makes the vow he will not keep.

  LVI.

  Far I hear the bugle blow

  The Day of Battle

  ‘FAR I hear the bugle blow

  To call me where I would not go,

  And the guns begin the song,

  “Soldier, fly or stay for long.”

  ‘Comrade, if to turn and fly 5

  Made a soldier never die,

  Fly I would, for who would not?

  ’Tis sure no pleasure to be shot.

  ‘But since the man that runs away

  Lives to die another day, 10

  And cowards’ funerals, when they come,

  Are not wept so well at home,

  ‘Therefore, though the best is bad,

  Stand and do the best, my lad;

  Stand and fight and see your slain, 15

  And take the bullet in your brain.’

  LVII.

  You smile upon your friend to-day

  YOU smile upon your friend to-day,

  To-day his ills are over;

  You hearken to the lover’s say,

  And happy is the lover.

  ’Tis late to hearken, late to smile, 5

  But better late than never:

  I shall have lived a little while

  Before I die for ever.

  LVIII.

  When I came last to Ludlow

  WHEN I came last to Ludlow

  Amidst the moonlight pale,

  Two friends kept step beside me,

  Two honest lads and hale.

  Now Dick lies long in the churchyard, 5

  And Ned lies long in jail,

  And I come home to Ludlow

  Amidst the moonlight pale.

  LIX.

  The star-filled seas are smooth to-night

  The Isle of Portland

  THE STAR-FILLED seas are smooth to-night

  From France to England strown;

  Black towers above the Portland light

  The felon-quarried stone.

  On yonder island, not to rise, 5

  Never to stir forth free,

  Far from his folk a dead lad lies

  That once was friends with me.

  Lie you easy, dream you light,

  And sleep you fast for aye; 10

  And luckier may you find the night

  Than ever you found the day.

  LX.

  Now hollow fires burn out to black

  NOW hollow fires burn out to black,

  And lights are guttering low:

  Square your shoulders, lift your pack,

  And leave your friends and go.

  Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread, 5

  Look not left nor right:

  In all the endless road you tread

  There’s nothing but the night.

  LXI.

  The vane on Hughley steeple

  Hughley Steeple

  THE VANE on Hughley steeple

  Veers bright, a far-known sign,

  And there lie Hughley people,

  And there lie friends of mine.

  Tall in their midst the tower 5

  Divides the shade and sun,

  And the clock strikes the hour

  And tells the time to none.

  To south the headstones cluster,

  The sunny mounds lie thick; 10

  The dead are more in muster

  At Hughley than the quick.

  North, for a soon-told number,

  Chill graves the sexton delves,

  And steeple-shadowed slumber 15

  The slayers of themselves.

  To north, to south, lie parted,

  With Hughley tower above,

  The kind, the single-hearted,

  The lads I used to love. 20

  And, south or north, ’tis only

  A choice of friends one knows,

  And I shall ne’er be lonely

  Asleep with these or those.

  LXII.

  Terence, this is stupid stuff

  ‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:

  You eat your victuals fast enough;

  There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,

  To see the rate you drink your beer.

  But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, 5

  It gives a chap the belly-ache.

  The cow, the old cow, she is dead;

  It sleeps well, the horned head:

  We poor lads, ’tis our turn now

  To hear such tunes as killed the cow. 10

  Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme

  Your friends to death before their time

  Moping melancholy mad:

  Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’

  Why, if ’tis dancing you would be, 15

  There’s brisker pipes than poetry.

  Say, for what were hop-yards meant,

  Or why was Burton built on Trent?

  Oh many a peer of England brews

  Livelier liquor than the Muse, 20

  And malt does more than Milton can

  To justify God’s ways to man.

  Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink

  For fellows whom it hurts to think:

  Look into the pewter pot 25

  To see the world as the world’s not.

  And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:

  The mischief is that ‘twill not last.

  Oh I have been to Ludlow fair

  And left my necktie God knows where, 30

  And carried half way home, or near,

  Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:

  Then the world seemed none so bad,

  And I myself a sterling lad;

  And down in lovely muck I’ve lain, 35

  Happy till I woke again.

  Then I saw the morning sky:

  Heigho, the tale was all a lie;

  The world, it was the old world yet,

  I was I, my things were wet, 40

  And nothing now remained to do

  But begin the game anew.

  Therefore, since the world has still

  Much good, but much less good than ill,

  And while the sun and moon endure 45

  Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,

  I’d face it as a wise man would,

  And train for ill and not for good.

  ’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale

  Is not so brisk a brew as ale: 50

  Out of a stem that scored the hand

  I wrung it in a weary land.

  But take it: if the smack is sour,

  The better for the embittered hour;

  It should do good to heart and head 55

  When your soul is in my soul’s stead;

  And I will friend you, if I may,

  In the dark and cloudy day.

  There was a king reigned in the East:

  There, when kings will sit
to feast, 60

  They get their fill before they think

  With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

  He gathered all the springs to birth

  From the many-venomed earth;

  First a little, thence to more, 65

  He sampled all her killing store;

  And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,

  Sate the king when healths went round.

  They put arsenic in his meat

  And stared aghast to watch him eat; 70

  They poured strychnine in his cup

  And shook to see him drink it up:

  They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:

  Them it was their poison hurt.

  — I tell the tale that I heard told. 75

  Mithridates, he died old.

  LXIII.

  I hoed and trenched and weeded

  I HOED and trenched and weeded,

  And took the flowers to fair:

  I brought them home unheeded;

  The hue was not the wear.

  So up and down I sow them 5

  For lads like me to find,

  When I shall lie below them,

  A dead man out of mind.

  Some seed the birds devour,

  And some the season mars, 10

  But here and there will flower

  The solitary stars,

  And fields will yearly bear them

  As light-leaved spring comes on,

  And luckless lads will wear them 15

  When I am dead and gone.

  THE END

  LAST POEMS

  In the early 1920s, as his beloved Moses Jackson lay dying in Canada, Housman wished to assemble his best unpublished poems for his friend to read before dying. These later poems, mostly written before 1910, demonstrate a greater variety of subject and form than exhibited in A Shropshire Lad, though they lack the consistency of the previous work. Housman published the second collection as Last Poems in 1922, opting for this title as he felt that his inspiration was exhausted and that he should not publish more in his lifetime, which proved to be true. After his death Housman’s brother Laurence published further poems which appeared in More Poems (1936) and Collected Poems (1939).

  Housman once described in a letter how his poems came into existence, describing poetry as ‘a morbid secretion’, as ‘the pearl is for the oyster’. The desire, or the need, did not come upon him often, he explained, and it came usually when he was feeling ill or depressed; then whole lines and stanzas would present themselves without any effort, or any consciousness of composition on his part. Sometimes they wanted a little alteration, sometimes none; sometimes the lines needed in order to make a complete poem would come later, spontaneously or with ‘a little coaxing’; sometimes he had to sit down and finish the poem with his head. ‘That was a long and laborious process.’

  The popularity of A Shropshire Lad ensured that Last Poems enjoyed a surprising success for a book of verse. However, Housman regarded himself principally as a Latinist and so avoided the literary world. In 1911 he became professor of Latin at Cambridge, teaching there almost up until his death. His major scholarly effort, to which he devoted more than thirty years of his life, was an annotated edition of Manilius, the last of the Roman didactic poets, whose poetry he did not like, but who gave him ample scope for emendation. Some of the asperity and directness that appears in Housman’s lyrics also is found in his scholarship, in which he defends common sense with a sarcastic wit that was reported to make him widely feared.

  The first edition

  CONTENTS

  I. THE WEST

  II.

  III.

  IV. ILLIC JACET

  V. GRENADIER

  VI. LANCER

  VII.

  VIII.

  IX.

  X.

  XI.

  XII.

  XIII. THE DESERTER

  XIV. THE CULPRIT

  XV. EIGHT O’CLOCK

  XVI. SPRING MORNING

  XVII. ASTRONOMY

  XVIII.

  XIX.

  XX.

  XXI.

  XXII.

  XXIII.

  XXIV. EPITHALAMIUM

  XXV. THE ORACLES

  XXVI.

  XXVII.

  XXVIII.

  XXIX.

  XXX. SINNER’S RUE

  XXXI. HELL’S GATE

  XXXII.

  XXXIII.

  XXXIV. THE FIRST OF MAY

  XXXV.

  XXXVI. REVOLUTION

  XXXVII. EPITAPH ON AN ARMY OF MERCENARIES

  XXXVIII.

  XXXIX.

  XL.

  XLI. FANCY’S KNELL

  The original title page

  Laurence Housman (1865-1959) was a playwright, writer and illustrator, who also edited his brother's posthumous poems, as well as preparing the controversial essay ‘De Amicitia’.

  I publish these poems, few though they are, because it is not likely that I shall ever be impelled to write much more. I can no longer expect to be revisited by the continuous excitement under which in the early months of 1895 I wrote the greater part of my first book, nor indeed could I well sustain it if it came; and it is best that what I have written should be printed while I am here to see it through the press and control its spelling and punctuation. About a quarter of this matter belongs to the April of the present year, but most of it to dates between 1895 and 1910.

  September 1922

  We’ll to the weeds no more,

  The laurels are all cut,

  The bowers are bare of bay

  That once the Muses wore;

  The year draws in the day

  And soon will evening shut:

  The laurels all are cut,

  We’ll to the woods no more.

  Oh we’ll no more, no more

  To the leafy woods away,

  To the high wild woods of laurel

  And the bowers of bay no more.

  I. THE WEST

  Beyond the moor and the mountain crest

  — Comrade, look not on the west —

  The sun is down and drinks away

  From air and land the lees of day.

  The long cloud and the single pine

  Sentinel the ending line,

  And out beyond it, clear and wan,

  Reach the gulfs of evening on.

  The son of woman turns his brow

  West from forty countries now,

  And, as the edge of heaven he eyes,

  Thinks eternal thoughts, and sighs.

  Oh wide’s the world, to rest or roam,

  With change abroad and cheer at home,

  Fights and furloughs, talk and tale,

  Company and beef and ale.

  But if I front the evening sky

  Silent on the west look I,

  And my comrade, stride for stride,

  Paces silent at my side,

  Comrade, look not on the west:

  ’Twill have the heart out of your breast;

  ’Twill take your thoughts and sink them far,

  Leagues beyond the sunset bar.

  Oh lad, I fear that yon’s the sea

  Where they fished for you and me,

  And there, from whence we both were ta’en,

  You and I shall drown again.

  Send not on your soul before

  To dive from that beguiling shore,

  And let not yet the swimmer leave

  His clothes upon the sands of eve.

  Too fast to yonder strand forlorn

  We journey, to the sunken bourn,

  To flush the fading tinges eyed

  By other lads at eventide.

  Wide is the world, to rest or roam,

  And early ’tis for turning home:

  Plant your heel on earth and stand,

  And let’s forget our native land.

  When you and I are split on air

  Long we shall be strangers there;

  Friends o
f flesh and bone are best;

  Comrade, look not on the west.

  II.

  As I gird on for fighting

  My sword upon my thigh,

  I think on old ill fortunes

  Of better men than I.

  Think I, the round world over,

  What golden lads are low

  With hurts not mine to mourn for

  And shames I shall not know.

  What evil luck soever

  For me remains in store,

  ’Tis sure much finer fellows

  Have fared much worse before.

  So here are things to think on

  That ought to make me brave,

  As I strap on for fighting

  My sword that will not save.

  III.

  Her strong enchantments failing,

  Her towers of fear in wreck,

  Her limbecks dried of poisons

  And the knife at her neck,

  The Queen of air and darkness

  Begins to shrill and cry,

  ’O young man, O my slayer,

  To-morrow you shall die.’

  O Queen of air and darkness,

  I think ’tis truth you say,

  And I shall die to-morrow;

  But you will die to-day.

  IV. ILLIC JACET

  Oh hard is the bed they have made him,

  And common the blanket and cheap;