“Soldier from the wars returning”

A. E. Housman

Soldier from the wars returning,

Spoiler of the taken town,

Here is ease that asks not earning;

Turn you in and sit you down.

Peace is come and wars are over,

Welcome you and welcome all,

While the charger crops the clover

And his bridle hangs in stall.

Now no more of winters biting,

Filth in trench from fall to spring,

Summers full of sweat and fighting

For the Kesar or the King.

Rest you, charger, rust you, bridle;

Kings and kesars, keep your pay;

Soldier, sit you down and idle

At the inn of night for aye.

A Shropshire Lad, IX

AE Housman

On moonlit heath and lonesome bank

The sheep beside me graze;

And yon the gallows used to clank

Fast by the four cross ways.

A careless shepherd once would keep

The flock by moonlight there,

And high amongst the glimmering sheep

The dead man stood on air.

They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:

The whistles blow forlorn,

And trains all night groan on the rail

To 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 noose

The morning clocks will ring

A neck God made for other use

Than strangling in a string.

And sharp the link of life will snap,

And dead on air will stand

Heels that held up as straight a chap

As treads upon the land.

So here I’ll watch the night and wait

To see the morning shine,

When he will hear the stroke of eight

And not the stroke of nine;

And wish my friend as sound a sleep

As lads’ I did not know,

That shepherded the moonlit sheep

A hundred years ago.

The Oracles

AE Houseman

’Tis mute, the word they went to hear on high Dodona mountain   When winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled, And mute’s the midland navel-stone beside the singing fountain,   And echoes list to silence now where gods told lies of old.

I took my question to the shrine that has not ceased from speaking,   The heart within, that tells the truth and tells it twice as plain; And from the cave of oracles I hear the priestess shrieking   That she and I should surely die and never live again.

Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound good sense I think it;   But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth your mouth no more. ’Tis true there’s better boose than brine, but he that drowns must drink it;   And oh, my lass, the news is news that men have heard before.

The king with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;   Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air. And he that stands must die for nought, and home there’s no returning.   The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.

Loveliest of Trees

A E Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing 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 bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.

Parta Quies

AE Housman

Good-night; ensured release, Imperishable peace,     Have these for yours, While sea abides, and land, And earth’s foundations stand,     And heaven endures.

When earth’s foundations flee, Nor sky nor land nor sea     At all is found, Content you, let them burn: It is not your concern;     Sleep on, sleep sound.

Bredon Hill

AE Housman

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.

Into My Heart An Air That Kills

AE Housman - from    A Shropshire Lad

INTO my heart an air that kills  From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills,  What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,           I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went  And cannot come again.

Loveliest of Trees

AE Houseman: from ‘A Shropshire Lad’

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing 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 bloom

Fifty springs are little room,

About the woodlands I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

More Poems VII

AE Housman

Stars, I have seen them fall,  But when they drop and die No star is lost at all  From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be  Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea,  And still the sea is salt.