A Shropshire Lad | Page 8

was brave:?Yours was not an ill for mending,?'Twas best to take it to the grave.
Oh you had forethought, you could reason,?And saw your road and where it led,?And early wise and brave in season?Put the pistol to your head.
Oh soon, and better so than later?After long disgrace and scorn,?You shot dead the household traitor,?The soul that should not have been born.
Right you guessed the rising morrow?And scorned to tread the mire you must:?Dust's your wages, son of sorrow,?But men may come to worse than dust.
Souls undone, undoing others,-?Long time since the tale began.?You would not live to wrong your brothers:?Oh lad, you died as fits a man.
Now to your grave shall friend and stranger?With ruth and some with envy come:?Undishonoured, clear of danger,?Clean of guilt, pass hence and home.
Turn safe to rest, no dreams, no waking;?And here, man, here's the wreath I've made:?'Tis not a gift that's worth the taking,?But wear it and it will not fade.
XLV
If it chance your eye offend you,?Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:?'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,?And many a balsam grows on ground.
And if your hand or foot offend you,?Cut it off, lad, and be whole;?But play the man, stand up and end you,?When your sickness is your soul.
XLVI
Bring, in this timeless grave to throw,?No cypress, sombre on the snow;?Snap not from the bitter yew?His leaves that live December through;?Break no rosemary, bright with rime?And sparkling to the cruel clime;?Nor plod the winter land to look?For willows in the icy brook?To cast them leafless round him: bring?No spray that ever buds in spring.
But if the Christmas field has kept?Awns the last gleaner overstept,?Or shrivelled flax, whose flower is blue?A single season, never two;?Or if one haulm whose year is o'er?Shivers on the upland frore,?-Oh, bring from hill and stream and plain?Whatever will not flower again,?To give him comfort: he and those?Shall bide eternal bedfellows?Where low upon the couch he lies?Whence he never shall arise.
XLVII
THE CARPENTER'S SON
"Here the hangman stops his cart:?Now the best of friends must part.?Fare you well, for ill fare I:?Live, lads, and I will die."
"Oh, at home had I but stayed?'Prenticed to my father's trade,?Had I stuck to plane and adze,?I had not been lost, my lads."
"Then I might have built perhaps?Gallows-trees for other chaps,?Never dangled on my own,?Had I but left ill alone."
"Now, you see, they hang me high,?And the people passing by?Stop to shake their fists and curse;?So 'tis come from ill to worse."
"Here hang I, and right and left?Two poor fellows hang for theft:?All the same's the luck we prove,?Though the midmost hangs for love."
"Comrades all, that stand and gaze,?Walk henceforth in other ways;?See my neck and save your own:?Comrades all, leave ill alone."
"Make some day a decent end,?Shrewder fellows than your friend.?Fare you well, for ill fare I:?Live, lads, and I will die."
XLVIII
Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle, Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.?Think rather,-call to thought, if now you grieve a little,?The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.
Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry?I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn;?Sweat ran and blood sprang out and I was never sorry:?Then it was well with me, in days ere I was born.
Now, and I muse for why and never find the reason,?I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun.?Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season:?Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.
Ay, look: high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation; All thoughts to rive the heart are here, and all are vain: Horror and scorn and hate and fear and indignationOh?why did I awake? when shall I sleep again?
XLIX
Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly:?Why should men make haste to die??Empty heads and tongues a-talking?Make the rough road easy walking,?And the feather pate of folly?Bears the falling sky.
Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking?Spins the heavy world around.?If young hearts were not so clever,?Oh, they would be young for ever:?Think no more; 'tis only thinking?Lays lads underground.
L
_ Clunton and Clunbury,?Clungunford and Clun,?Are the quietest places?Under the sun. _
In valleys of springs of rivers,?By Ony and Teme and Clun,?The country for easy livers,?The quietest under the sun,
We still had sorrows to lighten,?One could not be always glad,?And lads knew trouble at Knighton?When I was a Knighton lad.
By bridges that Thames runs under,?In London, the town built ill,?'Tis sure small matter for wonder?If sorrow is with one still.
And if as a lad grows older?The troubles he bears are more,?He carries his griefs on a shoulder?That handselled them long before.
Where shall one halt to deliver?This luggage I'd lief set down??Not Thames, not Teme is the river,?Nor London nor Knighton the town:
'Tis a long