A Shropshire Lad | Page 3

beside,
And fluted and
replied:
"Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;
What use to rise and rise?

Rise man a thousand mornings
Yet down at last he lies,
And then
the man is wise."
I heard the tune he sang me,
And spied his yellow bill;
I picked a
stone and aimed it
And threw it with a will:
Then the bird was still.
Then my soul within me
Took up the blackbird's strain,
And still
beside the horses
Along 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