A Shropshire Lad | Page 9

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 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