A Shropshire Lad | Page 9

way further than Knighton,?A quieter place than Clun,?Where doomsday may thunder and lighten?And little 'twill matter to one.
LI
Loitering with a vacant eye?Along the Grecian gallery,?And brooding on my heavy ill,?I met a statue standing still.?Still in marble stone stood he,?And stedfastly he looked at me.?"Well met," I thought the look would say,?"We both were fashioned far away;?We neither knew, when we were young,?These Londoners we live among."
Still he stood and eyed me hard,?An earnest and a grave regard:?"What, lad, drooping with your lot??I too would be where I am not.?I too survey that endless line?Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.?Years, ere you stood up from rest,?On my neck the collar prest;?Years, when you lay down your ill,?I shall stand and bear it still.?Courage, lad, 'tis not for long:?Stand, quit you like stone, be strong."?So I thought his look would say;?And light on me my trouble lay,?And I slept out in flesh and bone?Manful like the man of stone.
LII
Far in a western brookland?That bred me long ago?The poplars stand and tremble?By pools I used to know.
There, in the windless night-time,?The wanderer, marvelling why,?Halts on the bridge to hearken?How soft the poplars sigh.
He hears: long since forgotten?In fields where I was known,?Here I lie down in London?And turn to rest alone.
There, by the starlit fences,?The wanderer halts and hears?My soul that lingers sighing?About the glimmering weirs.
LIII
THE TRUE LOVER
The lad came to the door at night,?When lovers crown their vows,?And whistled soft and out of sight?In shadow of the boughs.
"I shall not vex you with my face?Henceforth, my love, for aye;?So take me in your arms a space?Before the east is grey."
"When I from hence away am past?I shall not find a bride,?And you shall be the first and last?I ever lay beside."
She heard and went and knew not why;?Her heart to his she laid;?Light was the air beneath the sky?But dark under the shade.
"Oh do you breathe, lad, that your breast?Seems not to rise and fall,?And here upon my bosom prest?There beats no heart at all?"
"Oh loud, my girl, it once would knock,?You should have felt it then;?But since for you I stopped the clock?It never goes again."
"Oh lad, what is it, lad, that drips?Wet from your neck on mine??What is it falling on my lips,?My lad, that tastes of brine?"
"Oh like enough 'tis blood, my dear,?For when the knife has slit?The throat across from ear to ear?'Twill bleed because of it."
Under the stars the air was light?But dark below the boughs,?The still air of the speechless night,?When lovers crown their vows.
LIV
With rue my heart is laden?For golden friends I had,?For many a rose-lipt maiden?And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping?The lightfoot boys are laid;?The rose-lipt girls are sleeping?In fields where roses fade.
LV
Westward on the high-hilled plains?Where for me the world began,?Still, I think, in newer veins?Frets the changeless blood of man.
Now that other lads than I?Strip to bathe on Severn shore,?They, no help, for all they try,?Tread the mill I trod before.
There, when hueless is the west?And the darkness hushes wide,?Where the lad lies down to rest?Stands the troubled dream beside.
There, on thoughts that once were mine,?Day looks down the eastern steep,?And the youth at morning shine?Makes the vow he will not keep.
LVI
THE DAY OF BATTLE
"Far I hear the bugle blow?To call me where I would not go,?And the guns begin the song,?'Soldier, fly or stay for long.'"
"Comrade, if to turn and fly?Made a soldier never die,?Fly I would, for who would not??'Tis sure no pleasure to be shot."
"But since the man that runs away?Lives to die another day,?And cowards' funerals, when they come?Are not wept so well at home."
"Therefore, though the best is bad,?Stand and do the best my lad;?Stand and fight and see your slain,?And take the bullet in your brain."
LVII
You smile upon your friend to-day,?To-day his ills are over;?You hearken to the lover's say,?And happy is the lover.
'Tis late to hearken, late to smile,?But better late than never:?I shall have lived a little while?Before I die for ever.
LVIII
When I came last to Ludlow?Amidst the moonlight pale,?Two friends kept step beside me,?Two honest lads and hale.
Now Dick lies long in the churchyard,?And Ned lies long in jail,?And I come home to Ludlow?Amidst the moonlight pale.
LIX
THE ISLE OF PORTLAND
The star-filled seas are smooth to-night?From France to England strown;?Black towers above the Portland light?The felon-quarried stone.
On yonder island, not to rise,?Never to stir forth free,?Far from his folk a dead lad lies?That once was friends with me.
Lie you easy, dream you light,?And sleep you fast for aye;?And luckier may you find the night?Than ever you found the day.
LX
Now hollow fires burn out to black,?And lights are guttering low:?Square your shoulders, lift your pack,?And leave your friends and go.
Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread,?Look not left nor right:?In all the endless road you tread?There's nothing but