A Shropshire Lad | Page 7

the wind are sown;?The names of men blow soundless by,?My fellows' and my own.
Oh lads, at home I heard you plain,?But here your speech is still,?And down the sighing wind in vain?You hollo from the hill.
The wind and I, we both were there,?But neither long abode;?Now through the friendless world we fare?And sigh upon the road.
XXXIX
'Tis time, I think by Wenlock town?The golden broom should blow;?The hawthorn sprinkled up and down?Should charge the land with snow.
Spring will not wait the loiterer's time?Who keeps so long away;?So others wear the broom and climb?The hedgerows heaped with may.
Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,?Gold that I never see;?Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge?That will not shower on me.
XL
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.
XLI
In my own shire, if I was sad?Homely comforts I had:?The earth, because my heart was sore,?Sorrowed for the son she bore;?And standing hills, long to remain,?Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.?And bound for the same bourn as I,?On every road I wandered by,?Trod beside me, close and dear,?The beautiful and death-struck year:?Whether in the woodland brown?I heard the beechnut rustle down,?And saw the purple crocus pale?Flower about the autumn dale;?Or littering far the fields of May?Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,?And like a skylit water stood?The bluebells in the azured wood.
Yonder, lightening other loads,?The seasons range the country roads,?But here in London streets I ken?No such helpmates, only men;?And these are not in plight to bear,?If they would, another's care.?They have enough as 'tis: I see?In many an eye that measures me?The mortal sickness of a mind?Too unhappy to be kind.?Undone with misery, all they can?Is to hate their fellow man;?And till they drop they needs must still?Look at you and wish you ill.
XLII
THE MERRY GUIDE
Once in the wind of morning?I ranged the thymy wold;?The world-wide air was azure?And all the brooks ran gold.
There through the dews beside me?Behold a youth that trod,?With feathered cap on forehead,?And poised a golden rod.
With mien to match the morning?And gay delightful guise?And friendly brows and laughter?He looked me in the eyes.
Oh whence, I asked, and whither??He smiled and would not say,?And looked at me and beckoned?And laughed and led the way.
And with kind looks and laughter?And nought to say beside?We two went on together,?I and my happy guide.
Across the glittering pastures?And empty upland still?And solitude of shepherds?High in the folded hill,
By hanging woods and hamlets?That gaze through orchards down?On many a windmill turning?And far-discovered town,
With gay regards of promise?And sure unslackened stride?And smiles and nothing spoken?Led on my merry guide.
By blowing realms of woodland?With sunstruck vanes afield?And cloud-led shadows sailing?About the windy weald,
By valley-guarded granges?And silver waters wide,?Content at heart I followed?With my delightful guide.
And like the cloudy shadows?Across the country blown?We two face on for ever,?But not we two alone.
With the great gale we journey?That breathes from gardens thinned,?Borne in the drift of blossoms?Whose petals throng the wind;
Buoyed on the heaven-heard whisper?Of dancing leaflets whirled?From all the woods that autumn?Bereaves in all the world.
And midst the fluttering legion?Of all that ever died?I follow, and before us?Goes the delightful guide,
With lips that brim with laughter?But never once respond,?And feet that fly on feathers,?And serpent-circled wand.
XLIII
THE IMMORTAL PART
When I meet the morning beam,?Or lay me down at night to dream,?I hear my bones within me say,?"Another night, another day."
"When shall this slough of sense be cast,?This dust of thoughts be laid at last,?The man of flesh and soul be slain?And the man of bone remain?"
"This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,?These thews that hustle us about,?This brain that fills the skull with schemes,?And its humming hive of dreams,-"
"These to-day are proud in power?And lord it in their little hour:?The immortal bones obey control?Of dying flesh and dying soul."
" 'Tis long till eve and morn are gone:?Slow the endless night comes on,?And late to fulness grows the birth?That shall last as long as earth."
"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,?Know you why you cannot rest??'Tis that every mother's son?Travails with a skeleton."
"Lie down in the bed of dust;?Bear the fruit that bear you must;?Bring the eternal seed to light,?And morn is all the same as night."
"Rest you so from trouble sore,?Fear the heat o' the sun no more,?Nor the snowing winter wild,?Now you labour not with child."
"Empty vessel, garment cast,?We that wore you long shall last.?-Another night, another day."?So my bones within me say.
Therefore they shall do my will?To-day while I am master still,?And flesh and soul, now both are strong,?Shall hale the sullen slaves along,
Before this fire of sense decay,?This smoke of thought blow clean away,?And leave with ancient night alone?The stedfast and enduring bone.
XLIV
Shot? so quick, so clean an ending??Oh that was right, lad, that