A Shropshire Lad | Page 7

lay:
That morning half a shire away
So
many an honest fellow's fist
Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist.

Hand, said I, since now we part
From fields and men we know by
heart,
From strangers' faces, strangers' lands,-
Hand, you have held
true fellows' hands.
Be clean then; rot before you do
A thing they'd
not believe of you.
You and I must keep from shame
In London
streets the Shropshire name;
On banks of Thames they must not say

Severn breeds worse men than they;
And friends abroad must bear
in mind
Friends at home they leave behind.
Oh, I shall be stiff and
cold
When I forget you, hearts of gold;
The land where I shall mind
you not
Is the land where all's forgot.
And if my foot returns no
more
To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore,
Luck, my lads, be with
you still
By falling stream and standing hill,
By chiming tower and
whispering tree,
Men that made a man of me.
About your work in
town and farm
Still you'll keep my head from harm,
Still you'll help
me, hands that gave
A grasp to friend me to the grave.
XXXVIII
The winds out of the west land blow,
My friends have breathed them
there;
Warm with the blood of lads I know
Comes east the sighing
air.
It fanned their temples, filled their lungs,
Scattered their forelocks
free;
My friends made words of it with tongues
That talk no more
to me.
Their voices, dying as they fly,
Thick on 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