A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems Read online

  The nettle on the graves of lovers

  That hanged themselves for love.

  The nettle nods, the wind blows over,

  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

  Here stood I to keep the goal:

  Football then was fighting sorrow

  For the young man’s soul.

  Now in Maytime to the wicket

  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

  Keeps the bones of man from lying

  On the bed of earth.

  XVIII

  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,

  And nothing will remain,

  And miles around they’ll say that I

  Am quite myself again.

  XIX

  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,

  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

  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

  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.

  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

  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,

  But I know fairer far:

  Those are as beautiful again

  That in the water are;

  The pools and rivers wash so clean

  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

  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

  And wishes he were I.

  XXI

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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.’

  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.

  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.

  XXII

  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,

  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;

  But dead or living, drunk or dry,

  Soldier, I wish you well.

  XXIII

  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,

  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;

  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,

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

  XXIV

  Say, 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 low

  Where 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.’

  XXV

  This time of year a twelvemonth past,

  When Fred and I would meet,

  We needs must jangle, till at last

  We fought and I was beat.

  So then the summer fields about,

  Till rainy days began,

  Rose Harland on her Sundays out

  Walked with the better man.

  The better man she walks with still,

  Though now ’tis not with Fred:

  A lad that lives and has his will

  Is 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 together

  Stock-still lies Fred and sleeps.

  XXVI

  Along the field as we came by

  A year ago, my love and I,

  The aspen over stile and stone

 
Was 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 tree

  There walks another love with me,

  And overhead the aspen heaves

  Its rainy-sounding silver leaves;

  And I spell nothing in their stir,

  But now perhaps they speak to her,

  And plain for her to understand

  They talk about a time at hand

  When I shall sleep with clover clad,

  And she beside another lad.

  XXVII

  ‘Is my team ploughing,

  That I was used to drive

  And hear the harness jingle

  When I was man alive?’

  Ay, the horses trample,

  The harness jingles now;

  No change though you lie under

  The land you used to plough.

  ‘Is football playing

  Along 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 keeper

  Stands up to keep the goal.

  ‘Is my girl happy,

  That I thought hard to leave,

  And has she tired of weeping

  As 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 in

  A 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.

  XXVIII

  The Welsh Marches

  High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam

  Islanded in Severn stream;

  The bridges from the steepled crest

  Cross the water east and west.

  The flag of morn in conqueror’s state

  Enters at the English gate:

  The vanquished eve, as night prevails,

  Bleeds upon the road to Wales.

  Ages since the vanquished bled

  Round my mother’s marriage-bed;

  There the ravens feasted far

  About the open house of war:

  When Severn down to Buildwas ran

  Coloured with the death of man,

  Couched upon her brother’s grave

  The Saxon got me on the slave.

  The sound of fight is silent long

  That began the ancient wrong;

  Long the voice of tears is still

  That 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 yet

  Trample, rolled in blood and sweat;

  They kill and kill and never die;

  And I think that each is I.

  None will part us, none undo

  The 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 rid

  Of the wrong my father did?

  How long, how long, till spade and hearse

  Put to sleep my mother’s curse?

  XXIX

  The Lent Lily

  ’Tis spring; come out to ramble

  The hilly brakes around,

  For under thorn and bramble

  About the hollow ground

  The primroses are found.

  And there’s the windflower chilly

  With all the winds at play,

  And there’s the Lenten lily

  That has not long to stay

  And dies on Easter day.

  And since till girls go maying

  You find the primrose still,

  And find the windflower playing

  With every wind at will,

  But not the daffodil,

  Bring baskets now, and sally

  Upon the spring’s array,

  And bear from hill and valley

  The daffodil away

  That dies on Easter day.

  XXX

  Others, I am not the first,

  Have willed more mischief than they durst:

  If in the breathless night I too

  Shiver 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 fire

  Fear contended with desire.

  Agued once like me were they,

  But I like them shall win my way

  Lastly to the bed of mould

  Where there’s neither heat nor cold.

  But from my grave across my brow

  Plays no wind of healing now,

  And fire and ice within me fight

  Beneath the suffocating night.

  XXXI

  On 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 hanger

  When Uricon the city stood:

  ’Tis the old wind in the old anger,

  But then it threshed another wood.

  Then, ’twas before my time, the Roman

  At 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 trouble

  Are ashes under Uricon.

  XXXII

  From far, from eve and morning

  And yon twelve-winded sky,

  The stuff of life to knit me

  Blew hither: here am I.

  Now – for a breath I tarry

  Nor 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 quarters

  I take my endless way.

  XXXIII

  If truth in hearts that perish

  Could move the powers on high,

  I think the love I bear you

  Should 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 ever

  If there were help in these.

  But now, since all is idle,

  To this lost heart be kind,

  Ere to a town you journey

  Where friends are ill to find.

  XXXIV

  The 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.
<
br />   And that was all the farewell when I parted from my dear.

  ‘I will go where I am wanted, to a lady born and bred

  Who 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.’

  XXXV

  On the idle hill of summer,

  Sleepy with the flow of streams,

  Far I hear the steady drummer

  Drumming like a noise in dreams.

  Far and near and low and louder

  On the roads of earth go by,

  Dear to friends and food for powder,

  Soldiers marching, all to die.

  East and west on fields forgotten

  Bleach 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.

  XXXVI

  White in the moon the long road lies,

  The moon stands blank above;

  White in the moon the long road lies

  That leads me from my love.

  Still hangs the hedge without a gust,

  Still, still the shadows stay:

  My feet upon the moonlit dust

  Pursue the ceaseless way.

  The world is round, so travellers tell,

  And straight though reach the track,

  Trudge on, trudge on, ’twill all be well,

  The way will guide one back.

  But ere the circle homeward hies

  Far, far must it remove:

  White in the moon the long road lies

  That leads me from my love.

  XXXVII

  As through the wild green hills of Wyre