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    A Shropshire Lad
    A Shropshire Lad
    A Shropshire Lad
    Ebook52 pages30 minutes

    A Shropshire Lad

    By A. E. Housman

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    About this ebook

    The charms of the poems in A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896, continue to resonate today. Housman's first collection and his signature work, the poems here mix the styles of traditional English ballads and classical verse, and evoke the idyllic English countryside, explore the nature of friendship, bravery, and the passing of youth, among other themes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJH
    Release dateMar 25, 2019
    ISBN9788834114469
    Author

    A. E. Housman

    Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) was born and brought up in the Bromsgrove region of Worcestershire, adjacent to Shropshire, and was educated locally and at St John's College, Oxford. Though he was a fine scholar, he failed to gin an Honours degree, and spent some years in the Patent Office in London. A series of brilliant academic articles secured him the Professorship of Latin at London University and he went on the become Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge and a Fellow of Trinity College. Most famous for A Shropshire Lad (1896), Last Poems was published in 1922, More Poems appeared posthumously and Collected Poems in 1939.

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      Book preview

      A Shropshire Lad - A. E. Housman

      A Shropshire Lad

      A. A. E. Housman   

      .

      From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,

                The shires have seen it plain,

                From north and south the sign returns

                And beacons burn again.

                Look left, look right, the hills are bright,

                The dales are light between,

                Because 'tis fifty years to-night

                That God has saved the Queen.

                Now, when the flame they watch not towers

                About the soil they trod,

                Lads, we'll remember friends of ours

                Who 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 show

                And Shropshire names are read;

                And the Nile spills his overflow

                Beside the Severn's dead.

                We pledge in peace by farm and town

                The Queen they served in war,

                And fire the beacons up and down

                The 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.

                II

                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.

                III

                THE RECRUIT

                Leave your home behind, lad,

                And reach your friends your hand,

                And go, and luck go with you

                While Ludlow tower shall stand.

                Oh, come you home of Sunday

                When Ludlow streets are still

                And Ludlow bells are calling

                To farm and lane and mill,

                Or come you home of Monday

                When Ludlow market hums

                And 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 you

                Till Ludlow tower shall fall.

                And you will list the bugle

                That blows in lands of morn,

                And make the foes of England

                Be sorry you were born.

                And you till trump of doomsday

                On lands of morn may lie,

                And make the hearts of comrades

               

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