When I would muse in boyhoodThe wild green woods among,And nurse resolves and fanciesBecause the world was young,It was not foes to conquer,Nor sweethearts to be kind,But it was friends to die forThat 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.
When the eye of day is shut,And the stars deny their beams,And about the forest hutBlows 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 restIn the lands where you are laid;In far lodgings east and westLie 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.
THE FIRST OF MAY
The orchards half the wayFrom home to Ludlow fairFlowered on the first of MayIn Mays when I was there;And seen from stile or turningThe plume of smoke would showWhere fires were burningThat went out long ago.The plum broke forth in green,The pear stood high and snowed,My friends and I betweenWould take the Ludlow road;Dressed to the nines and drinkingAnd light in heart and limb,And each chap thinkingThe fair was held for him.Between the trees in flowerNew friends at fairtime treadThe way where Ludlow towerStands 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 yetThe fools that we were then;For oh, the sons we getAre still the sons of men.The sumless tale of sorrowIs all unrolled in vain:May comes to-morrowAnd Ludlow fair again.
When first my way to fair I tookFew pence in purse had I,And long I used to stand and lookAt things I could not buy.Now times are altered: if I careTo 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 fourAnd neither five nor threeThe heart of man has long been soreAnd long 'tis like to be.
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 sightSafe to the Indies has the earth conveyedThe 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 darkHas crossed the nadir, and begins to climb.
These, in the day when heaven was falling,The hour when earth's foundations fled,Followed their mercenary callingAnd 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.
Oh stay at home, my lad, and ploughThe land and not the sea,And leave the soldiers at their drill,And all about the idle hillShepherd your sheep with me.Oh stay with company and mirthAnd daylight and the air;Too full already is the graveOf fellows that were good and braveAnd died because they were.
When summer's end is nighingAnd skies at evening cloud,I muse on change and fortuneAnd all the feats I vowedWhen I was young and proud.The weathercock at sunsetWould lose the slanted ray,And I would climb the beaconThat looked to Wales awayAnd saw the last of day.From hill and cloud and heavenThe hues of evening died;Night welled through lane and hollowAnd hushed the countryside,But I had youth and pride.And I with earth and nightfallIn converse high would stand,Late, till the west was ashenAnd darkness hard at hand,And the eye lost the land.The year might age, and cloudyThe lessening day might close,But air of other summersBreathed from beyond the snows,And I had hope of those.They came and were and are notAnd come no more anew;And all the years and seasonsThat ever can ensueMust now be worse and few.So here's an end of roamingOn eves when autumn nighs:The ear too fondly listensFor summer's parting sighs,And then the heart replies.
Tell me not here, it needs not saying,What tune the enchantress playsIn aftermaths of soft SeptemberOr under blanching mays,For she and I were long acquaintedAnd I knew all her ways.On russet floors, by waters idle,The pine lets fall its cone;The cuckoo shouts all day at nothingIn leafy dells alone;And traveler's joy beguiles in autumnHearts that have lost their own.On acres of the seeded grassesThe changing burnish heaves;Or marshalled under moons of harvestStand still all night the sheaves;Or beeches strip in storms for winterAnd stain the wind with leaves.Possess, as I possessed a season,The countries I resign,Where over elmy plains the highwayWould mount the hills and shine,And full of shade the pillared forestWould murmur and be mine.For nature, heartless, witless nature,Will neither care nor knowWhat stranger's feet may find the meadowAnd trespass there and go,Nor ask amid the dews of morningIf they are mine or no.
When lads were home from labourAt Abdon under Clee,A man would call his neighborAnd both would send for me.And where the light in lancesAcross the mead was laid,There to the dancesI 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 playingFrom tree and tower and steepThe light delaying,And flute the sun to sleep.The youth toward his fancyWould turn his brow of tan,And Tom would pair with NancyAnd Dick step off with Fan;The girl would lift her glancesTo his, and both be mute:Well went the dancesAt evening to the flute.Wenlock Edge was umbered,And bright was Abdon Burf,And warm between them slumberedThe smooth green miles of turf;Until from grass and cloverThe upshot beam would fade,And England overAdvanced the lofty shade.The lofty shade advances,I fetch my flute and play:Come, lads, and learn the dancesAnd praise the tune to-day.To-morrow, more's the pity,Away we both must hie,To air the ditty,And to earth I.