The Project Gutenberg eBook ofA Shropshire LadThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: A Shropshire LadAuthor: A. E. HousmanRelease date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5720]Most recently updated: February 5, 2013Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Albert Imrie, and David Widger*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHROPSHIRE LAD ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: A Shropshire LadAuthor: A. E. HousmanRelease date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5720]Most recently updated: February 5, 2013Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Albert Imrie, and David Widger
Title: A Shropshire Lad
Author: A. E. Housman
Author: A. E. Housman
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5720]Most recently updated: February 5, 2013
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Albert Imrie, and David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHROPSHIRE LAD ***
INTRODUCTION
A SHROPSHIRE LAD
The method of the poems inA Shropshire Ladillustrates better than any theory how poetry may assume the attire of reality, and yet in speech of the simplest, become in spirit the sheer quality of loveliness. For, in these unobtrusive pages, there is nothing shunned which makes the spectacle of life parade its dark and painful, its ironic and cynical burdens, as well as those images with happy and exquisite aspects. With a broader and deeper background of experience and environment, which by some divine special privilege belongs to the poetic imagination, it is easier to set apart and contrast these opposing words and sympathies in a poet; but here we find them evoked in a restricted locale- an English county-where the rich, cool tranquil landscape gives a solid texture to the human show. What, I think, impresses one, thrills, like ecstatic, half-smothered strains of music, floating from unperceived instruments, in Mr. Housman's poems, is the encounter his spirit constantly endures with life. It is, this encounter, what you feel in the Greeks, and as in the Greeks, it is a spiritual waging of miraculous forces. There is, too, in Mr. Housman's poems, the singularly Grecian Quality of a clean and fragrant mental and emotional temper, vibrating equally whether the theme dealt with is ruin or defeat, or some great tragic crisis of spirit, or with moods and ardours of pure enjoyment and simplicities of feeling. Scarcely has any modern book of poems shown so sure a touch of genius in this respect: the magic, in a continuous glow saturating the substance of every picture and motive with its own peculiar essence.
What has been called the "cynical bitterness" of Mr. Housman's poems, is really nothing more than his ability to etch in sharp tones the actualities of experience. The poet himself is never cynical; his joyousness is all too apparent in the very manner and intensity of expression. The "lads" of Ludlow are so human to him, the hawthorn and broom on the Severn shores are so fragrant with associations, he cannot help but compose under a kind of imaginative wizardry of exultation, even when the immediate subject is grim or grotesque. In many of these brief, tense poems the reader confronts a mask, as it were, with appalling and distorted lineaments; but behind it the poet smiles, perhaps sardonically, but smiles nevertheless. In the real countenance there are no tears or grievances, but a quizzical, humorous expression which shows, when one has torn the subterfuge away, that here is a spirit whom life may menace with its contradictions and fatalities, but never dupe with its circumstance and mystery.
All this quite points to, and partly explains, the charm of the poems inA Shropshire Lad. The fastidious care with which each poem is built out of the simplest of technical elements, the precise tone and color of language employed to articulate impulse and mood, and the reproduction of objective substances for a clear visualization of character and scene, all tend by a sure and unfaltering composition, to present a lyric art unique in English poetry of the last twenty-five years.
I dare say I have scarcely touched upon the secret of Mr. Housman's book. For some it may radiate from the Shropshire life he so finely etches; for others, in the vivid artistic simplicity and unity of values, through which Shropshire lads and landscapes are presented. It must be, however, in the miraculous fusing of the two. Whatever that secret is, the charm of it never fails after all these years to keep the poems preserved with a freshness and vitality, which are the qualities of enduring genius.
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
I1887From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,The shires have seen it plain,From north and south the sign returnsAnd beacons burn again.Look left, look right, the hills are bright,The dales are light between,Because 'tis fifty years to-nightThat God has saved the Queen.Now, when the flame they watch not towersAbout the soil they trod,Lads, we'll remember friends of oursWho shared the work with God.To skies that knit their heartstrings right,To fields that bred them brave,The saviours come not home to-night:Themselves they could not save.It dawns in Asia, tombstones showAnd Shropshire names are read;And the Nile spills his overflowBeside the Severn's dead.We pledge in peace by farm and townThe Queen they served in war,And fire the beacons up and downThe land they perished for."God Save the Queen" we living sing,From height to height 'tis heard;And with the rest your voices ring,Lads of the Fifty-third.Oh, God will save her, fear you not:Be you the men you've been,Get you the sons your fathers got,And God will Save the Queen.
IILoveliest of trees, the cherry nowIs hung with bloom along the bough,And stands about the woodland rideWearing white for Eastertide.Now, of my threescore years and ten,Twenty will not come again,And take from seventy springs a score,It only leaves me fifty more.And since to look at things in bloomFifty springs are little room,About the woodlands I will goTo see the cherry hung with snow.
IIITHE RECRUITLeave your home behind, lad,And reach your friends your hand,And go, and luck go with youWhile Ludlow tower shall stand.Oh, come you home of SundayWhen Ludlow streets are stillAnd Ludlow bells are callingTo farm and lane and mill,Or come you home of MondayWhen Ludlow market humsAnd Ludlow chimes are playing"The conquering hero comes,"Come you home a hero,Or come not home at all,The lads you leave will mind youTill Ludlow tower shall fall.And you will list the bugleThat blows in lands of morn,And make the foes of EnglandBe sorry you were born.And you till trump of doomsdayOn lands of morn may lie,And make the hearts of comradesBe heavy where you die.Leave your home behind you,Your friends by field and townOh, town and field will mind youTill Ludlow tower is down.
IVREVEILLEWake: the silver dusk returningUp the beach of darkness brims,And the ship of sunrise burningStrands upon the eastern rims.Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,Trampled to the floor it spanned,And the tent of night in tattersStraws the sky-pavilioned land.Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:Hear the drums of morning play;Hark, the empty highways crying"Who'll beyond the hills away?"Towns and countries woo together,Forelands beacon, belfries call;Never lad that trod on leatherLived to feast his heart with all.Up, lad: thews that lie and cumberSunlit pallets never thrive;Morns abed and daylight slumberWere not meant for man alive.Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;Breath's a ware that will not keepUp, lad: when the journey's overThere'll be time enough to sleep.
VOh see how thick the goldcup flowersAre lying in field and lane,With dandelions to tell the hoursThat never are told again.Oh may I squire you round the meadsAnd pick you posies gay?-'Twill do no harm to take my arm."You may, young man, you may."Ah, spring was sent for lass and lad,'Tis now the blood runs gold,And man and maid had best be gladBefore the world is old.What flowers to-day may flower to-morrow,But never as good as new.-Suppose I wound my arm right round-" 'Tis true, young man, 'tis true."Some lads there are, 'tis shame to say,That only court to thieve,And once they bear the bloom away'Tis little enough they leave.Then keep your heart for men like meAnd safe from trustless chaps.My love is true and all for you."Perhaps, young man, perhaps."Oh, look in my eyes, then, can you doubt?-Why, 'tis a mile from town.How green the grass is all about!We might as well sit down.-Ah, life, what is it but a flower?Why must true lovers sigh?Be kind, have pity, my own, my pretty,-"Good-bye, young man, good-bye."
VIWhen 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: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 mornLovers' ills are all to sell.Then you can lie down forlorn;But the lover will be well.
VIIWhen smoke stood up from Ludlow,And mist blew off from Teme,And blithe afield to ploughingAgainst the morning beamI strode beside my team,The blackbird in the coppiceLooked out to see me stride,And hearkened as I whistledThe tramping team beside,And fluted and replied:"Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;What use to rise and rise?Rise man a thousand morningsYet down at last he lies,And then the man is wise."I heard the tune he sang me,And spied his yellow bill;I picked a stone and aimed itAnd threw it with a will:Then the bird was still.Then my soul within meTook up the blackbird's strain,And still beside the horsesAlong the dewy laneIt Sang the song again:"Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;The sun moves always west;The road one treads to labourWill lead one home to rest,And that will be the best."
VIII"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,By now the blood is dried;And Maurice amongst the hay lies stillAnd my knife is in his side.""My mother thinks us long away;'Tis time the field were mown.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,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.""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."
IXOn moonlit heath and lonesome bankThe sheep beside me graze;And yon the gallows used to clankFast by the four cross ways.A careless shepherd once would keepThe flocks by moonlight there, (1)And high amongst the glimmering sheepThe dead man stood on air.They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:The whistles blow forlorn,And trains all night groan on the railTo men that die at morn.There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,Or wakes, as may betide,A better lad, if things went right,Than most that sleep outside.And naked to the hangman's nooseThe morning clocks will ringA neck God made for other useThan strangling in a string.And sharp the link of life will snap,And dead on air will standHeels that held up as straight a chapAs treads upon the land.So here I'll watch the night and waitTo see the morning shine,When he will hear the stroke of eightAnd not the stroke of nine;And wish my friend as sound a sleepAs lads' I did not know,That shepherded the moonlit sheepA hundred years ago.(1) Hanging in chains was called keeping sheep by moonlight.
XMARCHThe sun at noon to higher air,Unharnessing the silver PairThat late before his chariot swam,Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.So braver notes the storm-cock singsTo start the rusted wheel of things,And brutes in field and brutes in penLeap that the world goes round again.The boys are up the woods with dayTo fetch the daffodils away,And home at noonday from the hillsThey 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 pondHer waving silver-tufted wand.In farm and field through all the shireThe eye beholds the heart's desire;Ah, let not only mine be vain,For lovers should be loved again.
XIOn your midnight pallet lyingListen, and undo the door:Lads that waste the light in sighingIn the dark should sigh no more;Night should ease a lover's sorrow;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,In a kinder bed I lay,And the breast the darnel smothersRested once upon another'sWhen it was not clay.
XIIWhen I watch the living meet,And the moving pageant fileWarm and breathing through the streetWhere I lodge a little while,If the heats of hate and lustIn the house of flesh are strong,Let me mind the house of dustWhere my sojourn shall be long.In the nation that is notNothing stands that stood before;There revenges are forgot,And the hater hates no more;Lovers lying two and twoAsk not whom they sleep beside,And the bridegroom all night throughNever turns him to the bride.
XIIIWhen I was one-and-twentyI heard a wise man say,"Give crowns and pounds and guineasBut not your heart away;Give pearls away and rubiesBut keep your fancy free."But I was one-and-twenty,No use to talk to me.When I was one-and-twentyI heard him say again,"The heart out of the bosomWas never given in vain;'Tis paid with sighs a plentyAnd sold for endless rue."And I am two-and-twenty,And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
XIVThere pass the careless peopleThat call their souls their own:Here by the road I loiter,How idle and alone.Ah, past the plunge of plummet,In seas I cannot sound,My heart and soul and senses,World without end, are drowned.His folly has not fellowBeneath the blue of dayThat gives to man or womanHis heart and soul away.There flowers no balm to sain himFrom east of earth to westThat's lost for everlastingThe heart out of his breast.Here by the labouring highwayWith empty hands I stroll:Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,Lie lost my heart and soul.
XVLook not in my eyes, for fearThey mirror true the sight I see,And there you find your face too clearAnd love it and be lost like me.One the long nights through must lieSpent in star-defeated sighs,But why should you as well as IPerish? gaze not in my eyes.A Grecian lad, as I hear tell,One that many loved in vain,Looked into a forest wellAnd never looked away again.There, when the turf in springtime flowers,With downward eye and gazes sad,Stands amid the glancing showersA jonquil, not a Grecian lad.
XVIIt nods and curtseys and recoversWhen the wind blows above,The nettle on the graves of loversThat hanged themselves for love.The nettle nods, the wind blows over,The man, he does not move,The lover of the grave, the loverThat hanged himself for love.
XVIITwice a week the winter thoroughHere stood I to keep the goal:Football then was fighting sorrowFor the young man's soul.Now in May time to the wicketOut I march with bat and pad:See the son of grief at cricketTrying to be glad.Try I will; no harm in trying:Wonder 'tis how little mirthKeeps the bones of man from lyingOn the bed of earth.
XVIIIOh, when I was in love with you,Then I was clean and brave,And miles around the wonder grewHow well did I behave.And now the fancy passes by,And nothing will remain,And miles around they'll say that IAm quite myself again.
XIXTO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNGThe time you won your town the raceWe 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,Shoulder-high we bring you home,And set you at your threshold down,Townsman of a stiller town.Smart lad, to slip betimes awayFrom fields where glory does not stayAnd early though the laurel growsIt withers quicker than the rose.Eyes the shady night has shutCannot see the record cut,And silence sounds no worse than cheersAfter earth has stopped the ears:Now you will not swell the routOf lads that wore their honours out,Runners whom renown outranAnd the name died before the man.So set, before its echoes fade,The fleet foot on the sill of shade,And hold to the low lintel upThe still-defended challenge-cup.And round that early-laurelled headWill flock to gaze the strengthless dead,And find unwithered on its curlsThe garland briefer than a girl's.
XXOh fair enough are sky and plain,But I know fairer far:Those are as beautiful againThat in the water are;The pools and rivers wash so cleanThe trees and clouds and air,The like on earth was never seen,And oh that I were there.These are the thoughts I often thinkAs I stand gazing downIn act upon the cressy brinkTo strip and dive and drown;But in the golden-sanded brooksAnd azure meres I spyA silly lad that longs and looksAnd wishes he were I.
XXIBREDON HILL (1)In summertime on BredonThe bells they sound so clear;Round both the shires they ring themIn steeples far and near,A happy noise to hear.Here of a Sunday morningMy love and I would lieAnd see the coloured counties,And hear the larks so highAbout us in the sky.The bells would ring to call herIn valleys miles away:"Come all to church, good people;Good people, come and pray."But here my love would stay.And I would turn and answerAmong the springing thyme,"Oh, peal upon our wedding,And we will hear the chime,And come to church in time."But when the snows at ChristmasOn Bredon top were strown,My love rose up so earlyAnd stole out unbeknownAnd went to church alone.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.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.
(1) Pronounced Breedon.
XXIIThe 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,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 IWe cannot stop to tell;But dead or living, drunk or dry,Soldier, I wish you well.
XXIIIThe 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,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 tellThe fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewellAnd 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 toldThey carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
XXIVSay, lad, have you things to do?Quick then, while your day's at prime.Quick, and if 'tis work for two,Here am I, man: now's your time.Send me now, and I shall go;Call me, I shall hear you call;Use me ere they lay me lowWhere a man's no use at all;Ere the wholesome flesh decay,And the willing nerve be numb,And the lips lack breath to say,"No, my lad, I cannot come."
XXVThis time of year a twelvemonth past,When Fred and I would meet,We needs must jangle, till at lastWe fought and I was beat.So then the summer fields about,Till rainy days began,Rose Harland on her Sundays outWalked with the better man.The better man she walks with still,Though now 'tis not with Fred:A lad that lives and has his willIs worth a dozen dead.Fred keeps the house all kinds of weather,And clay's the house he keeps;When Rose and I walk out togetherStock-still lies Fred and sleeps.
XXVIAlong the fields as we came byA year ago, my love and I,The aspen over stile and stoneWas talking to itself alone."Oh who are these that kiss and pass?A country lover and his lass;Two lovers looking to be wed;And time shall put them both to bed,But she shall lie with earth above,And he beside another love."And sure enough beneath the treeThere walks another love with me,And overhead the aspen heavesIts rainy-sounding silver leaves;And I spell nothing in their stir,But now perhaps they speak to her,And plain for her to understandThey talk about a time at handWhen I shall sleep with clover clad,And she beside another lad.
XXVII"Is my team ploughing,That I was used to driveAnd hear the harness jingleWhen I was man alive?"Ay, the horses trample,The harness jingles now;No change though you lie underThe land you used to plough."Is football playingAlong the river shore,With lads to chase the leather,Now I stand up no more?"Ay, the ball is flying,The lads play heart and soul;The goal stands up, the keeperStands up to keep the goal."Is my girl happy,That I thought hard to leave,And has she tired of weepingAs she lies down at eve?"Ay, she lies down lightly,She lies not down to weep:Your girl is well contented.Be still, my lad, and sleep."Is my friend hearty,Now I am thin and pine,And has he found to sleep inA better bed than mine?"Yes, lad, I lie easy,I lie as lads would choose;I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,Never ask me whose.
XXVIIITHE WELSH MARCHESHigh the vanes of Shrewsbury gleamIslanded in Severn stream;The bridges from the steepled crestCross the water east and west.The flag of morn in conqueror's stateEnters at the English gate:The vanquished eve, as night prevails,Bleeds upon the road to Wales.Ages since the vanquished bledRound my mother's marriage-bed;There the ravens feasted farAbout the open house of war:When Severn down to Buildwas ranColoured with the death of man,Couched upon her brother's graveThe Saxon got me on the slave.The sound of fight is silent longThat began the ancient wrong;Long the voice of tears is stillThat wept of old the endless ill.In my heart it has not died,The war that sleeps on Severn side;They cease not fighting, east and west,On the marches of my breast.Here the truceless armies yetTrample, rolled in blood and sweat;They kill and kill and never die;And I think that each is I.None will part us, none undoThe knot that makes one flesh of two,Sick with hatred, sick with pain,Strangling-When shall we be slain?When shall I be dead and ridOf the wrong my father did?How long, how long, till spade and hearsePut to sleep my mother's curse?
XXIXTHE LENT LILY'Tis spring; come out to rambleThe hilly brakes around,For under thorn and brambleAbout the hollow groundThe primroses are found.And there's the windflower chillyWith all the winds at play,And there's the Lenten lilyThat has not long to stayAnd dies on Easter day.And since till girls go mayingYou find the primrose still,And find the windflower playingWith every wind at will,But not the daffodil,Bring baskets now, and sallyUpon the spring's array,And bear from hill and valleyThe daffodil awayThat dies on Easter day.
XXXOthers, I am not the first,Have willed more mischief than they durst:If in the breathless night I tooShiver now, 'tis nothing new.More than I, if truth were told,Have stood and sweated hot and cold,And through their reins in ice and fireFear contended with desire.Agued once like me were they,But I like them shall win my wayLastly to the bed of mouldWhere there's neither heat nor cold.But from my grave across my browPlays no wind of healing now,And fire and ice within me fightBeneath the suffocating night.
XXXIOn Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The gale, it plies the saplings double,And thick on Severn snow the leaves.'Twould blow like this through holt and hangerWhen Uricon the city stood:'Tis the old wind in the old anger,But then it threshed another wood.Then, 'twas before my time, the RomanAt yonder heaving hill would stare:The blood that warms an English yeoman,The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.There, like the wind through woods in riot,Through him the gale of life blew high;The tree of man was never quiet:Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.The gale, it plies the saplings double,It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:To-day the Roman and his troubleAre ashes under Uricon.
XXXIIFrom far, from eve and morningAnd yon twelve-winded sky,The stuff of life to knit meBlew hither: here am I.Now- for a breath I tarryNor yet disperse apart-Take my hand quick and tell me,What have you in your heart.Speak now, and I will answer;How shall I help you, say;Ere to the wind's twelve quartersI take my endless way.
XXXIIIIf truth in hearts that perishCould move the powers on high,I think the love I bear youShould make you not to die.Sure, sure, if stedfast meaning,If single thought could save,The world might end to-morrow,You should not see the grave.This long and sure-set liking,This boundless will to please,-Oh, you should live for everIf there were help in these.But now, since all is idle,To this lost heart be kind,Ere to a town you journeyWhere friends are ill to find.
XXXIVTHE NEW MISTRESS"Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be?You may be good for something, but you are not good for me.Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here."And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear."I will go where I am wanted, to a lady born and bredWho will dress me free for nothing in a uniform of red;She will not be sick to see me if I only keep it clean:I will go where I am wanted for a soldier of the Queen.""I will go where I am wanted, for the sergeant does not mind;He may be sick to see me but he treats me very kind:He gives me beer and breakfast and a ribbon for my cap,And I never knew a sweetheart spend her money on a chap.""I will go where I am wanted, where there's room for one or two,And the men are none too many for the work there is to do;Where the standing line wears thinner and the dropping dead lie thick;And the enemies of England they shall see me and be sick."
XXXVOn the idle hill of summer,Sleepy with the flow of streams,Far I hear the steady drummerDrumming like a noise in dreams.Far and near and low and louderOn the roads of earth go by,Dear to friends and food for powder,Soldiers marching, all to die.East and west on fields forgottenBleach the bones of comrades slain,Lovely lads and dead and rotten;None that go return again.Far the calling bugles hollo,High the screaming fife replies,Gay the files of scarlet follow:Woman bore me, I will rise.