Read Ebook: Last Poems by A. E. Housman by Housman A E Alfred Edward

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 164 lines and 14232 words, and 4 pages

If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours To-morrow it will hie on far behests; The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.

The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

Could man be drunk for ever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning And lief lie down of nights.

But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.

Yonder see the morning blink: The sun is up, and up must I, To wash and dress and eat and drink And look at things and talk and think And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed And what's to show for all my pain? Let me lie abed and rest: Ten thousand times I've done my best And all's to do again.

The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me; And if my ways are not as theirs Let them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn, Yet when did I make laws for them? Please yourselves, say I, and they Need only look the other way. But no, they will not; they must still Wrest their neighbour to their will, And make me dance as they desire With jail and gallows and hell-fire. And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made. They will be master, right or wrong; Though both are foolish, both are strong, And since, my soul, we cannot fly To Saturn or Mercury, Keep we must, if keep we can, These foreign laws of God and man.

"What sound awakened me, I wonder, For now 'tis dumb." "Wheels on the road most like, or thunder: Lie down; 'twas not the drum.:

"Toil at sea and two in haven And trouble far: Fly, crow, away, and follow, raven, And all that croaks for war."

"Hark, I heard the bugle crying, And where am I? My friends are up and dressed and dying, And I will dress and die."

"Oh love is rare and trouble plenty And carrion cheap, And daylight dear at four-and-twenty: Lie down again and sleep."

"Reach me my belt and leave your prattle: Your hour is gone; But my day is the day of battle, And that comes dawning on.

"They mow the field of man in season: Farewell, my fair, And, call it truth or call it treason, Farewell the vows that were."

"Ay, false heart, forsake me lightly: 'Tis like the brave. They find no bed to joy in rightly Before they find the grave.

"Their love is for their own undoing. And east and west They scour about the world a-wooing The bullet in their breast.

"Sail away the ocean over, Oh sail away, And lie there with your leaden lover For ever and a day."

The night my father got me His mind was not on me; He did not plague his fancy To muse if I should be The son you see.

The day my mother bore me She was a fool and glad, For all the pain I cost her, That she had borne the lad That borne she had.

My mother and my father Out of the light they lie; The warrant would not find them, And here 'tis only I Shall hang so high.

Oh let not man remember The soul that God forgot, But fetch the county kerchief And noose me in the knot, And I will rot.

For so the game is ended That should not have begun. My father and my mother They had a likely son, And I have none.

He stood, and heard the steeple Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town. One, two, three, four, to market-place and people It tossed them down.

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.

Star and coronal and bell April underfoot renews, And the hope of man as well Flowers among the morning dews.

Now the old come out to look, Winter past and winter's pains. How the sky in pool and brook Glitters on the grassy plains.

Easily the gentle air Wafts the turning season on; Things to comfort them are there, Though 'tis true the best are gone.

Now the scorned unlucky lad Rousing from his pillow gnawn Mans his heart and deep and glad Drinks the valiant air of dawn.

Half the night he longed to die, Now are sown on hill and plain Pleasures worth his while to try Ere he longs to die again.

Blue the sky from east to west Arches, and the world is wide, Though the girl he loves the best Rouses from another's side.

The Wain upon the northern steep Descends and lifts away. Oh I will sit me down and weep For bones in Africa.

For pay and medals, name and rank, Things that he has not found, He hove the Cross to heaven and sank The pole-star underground.

And now he does not even see Signs of the nadir roll At night over the ground where he Is buried with the pole.

The rain, it streams on stone and hillock, The boot clings to the clay. Since all is done that's due and right Let's home; and now, my lad, good-night, For I must turn away.

Good-night, my lad, for nought's eternal; No league of ours, for sure. Tomorrow I shall miss you less, And ache of heart and heaviness Are things that time should cure.

Over the hill the highway marches And what's beyond is wide: Oh soon enough will pine to nought Remembrance and the faithful thought That sits the grave beside.

The skies, they are not always raining Nor grey the twelvemonth through; And I shall meet good days and mirth, And range the lovely lands of earth With friends no worse than you.

But oh, my man, the house is fallen That none can build again; My man, how full of joy and woe Your mother bore you years ago To-night to lie in the rain.

In midnights of November, When Dead Man's Fair is nigh, And danger in the valley, And anger in the sky,

Around the huddling homesteads The leafless timber roars, And the dead call the dying And finger at the doors.

Oh, yonder faltering fingers Are hands I used to hold; Their false companion drowses And leaves them in the cold.

Oh, to the bed of ocean, To Africk and to Ind, I will arise and follow Along the rainy wind.

The night goes out and under With all its train forlorn; Hues in the east assemble And cocks crow up the morn.

The living are the living And dead the dead will stay, And I will sort with comrades That face the beam of day.

The night is freezing fast, To-morrow comes December; And winterfalls of old Are with me from the past; And chiefly I remember How Dick would hate the cold.

Fall, winter, fall; for he, Prompt hand and headpiece clever, Has woven a winter robe, And made of earth and sea His overcoat for ever, And wears the turning globe.

The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn, And up from India glances The silver sail of dawn.

The candles burn their sockets, The blinds let through the day, The young man feels his pockets And wonders what's to pay.

The sloe was lost in flower, The April elm was dim; That was the lover's hour, The hour for lies and him.

If thorns are all the bower, If north winds freeze the fir, Why, 'tis another's hour, The hour for truth and her.

In the blue and silver morning On the haycock as they lay, Oh they looked at one another And they looked away.

He is here, Urania's son, Hymen come from Helicon; God that glads the lover's heart, He is here to join and part. So the groomsman quits your side And the bridegroom seeks the bride: Friend and comrade yield you o'er To her that hardly loves you more.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet