A Shropshire Lad | Page 4

woman
His heart and soul away.
There flowers no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's
lost for everlasting
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.
XV
Look not in my eyes, for fear
They 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
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,
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
A jonquil, not a Grecian lad.
XVI

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 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 May time 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 [1]
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.
[1] Pronounced Breedon.
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