A Shropshire Lad | Page 3

the dewy lane?It Sang the song again:
"Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;?The sun moves always west;?The road one treads to labour?Will lead one home to rest,?And that will be the best."
VIII
"Farewell to barn and stack and tree,?Farewell to Severn shore.?Terence, look your last at me,?For I come home no more.
"The sun burns on the half-mown hill,?By now the blood is dried;?And Maurice amongst the hay lies still?And my knife is in his side."
"My mother thinks us long away;?'Tis time the field were mown.?She had two sons at rising day,?To-night she'll be alone."
"And here's a bloody hand to shake,?And oh, man, here's good-bye;?We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,?My bloody hands and I."
"I wish you strength to bring you pride,?And a love to keep you clean,?And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,?At racing on the green."
"Long for me the rick will wait,?And long will wait the fold,?And long will stand the empty plate,?And dinner will be cold."
IX
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 flocks by moonlight there, [1]?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.
[1] Hanging in chains was called keeping sheep by moonlight.
X
MARCH
The sun at noon to higher air,?Unharnessing the silver Pair?That late before his chariot swam,?Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.
So braver notes the storm-cock sings?To start the rusted wheel of things,?And brutes in field and brutes in pen?Leap that the world goes round again.
The boys are up the woods with day?To fetch the daffodils away,?And home at noonday from the hills?They bring no dearth of daffodils.
Afield for palms the girls repair,?And sure enough the palms are there,?And each will find by hedge or pond?Her waving silver-tufted wand.
In farm and field through all the shire?The eye beholds the heart's desire;?Ah, let not only mine be vain,?For lovers should be loved again.
XI
On your midnight pallet lying?Listen, and undo the door:?Lads that waste the light in sighing?In the dark should sigh no more;?Night should ease a lover's sorrow;?Therefore, since I go to-morrow;?Pity me before.
In the land to which I travel,?The far dwelling, let me sayOnce,?if here the couch is gravel,?In a kinder bed I lay,?And the breast the darnel smothers?Rested once upon another's?When it was not clay.
XII
When I watch the living meet,?And the moving pageant file?Warm and breathing through the street?Where I lodge a little while,
If the heats of hate and lust?In the house of flesh are strong,?Let me mind the house of dust?Where my sojourn shall be long.
In the nation that is not?Nothing stands that stood before;?There revenges are forgot,?And the hater hates no more;
Lovers lying two and two?Ask not whom they sleep beside,?And the bridegroom all night through?Never turns him to the bride.
XIII
When I was one-and-twenty?I heard a wise man say,?"Give crowns and pounds and guineas?But not your heart away;?Give pearls away and rubies?But keep your fancy free."?But I was one-and-twenty,?No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty?I heard him say again,?"The heart out of the bosom?Was never given in vain;?'Tis paid with sighs a plenty?And sold for endless rue."?And I am two-and-twenty,?And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
XIV
There pass the careless people?That call their souls their own:?Here by the road I loiter,?How idle and alone.
Ah, past the plunge of plummet,?In seas I cannot sound,?My heart and soul and senses,?World without end, are drowned.
His folly has not fellow?Beneath the blue of day?That gives to man or 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