Kitabı oku: «Last Poems by A. E. Housman», sayfa 6

XXXII

 
     When I would muse in boyhood
         The wild green woods among,
     And nurse resolves and fancies
         Because the world was young,
     It was not foes to conquer,
         Nor sweethearts to be kind,
     But it was friends to die for
         That I would seek and find.
 
 
     I sought them far and found them,
         The sure, the straight, the brave,
     The hearts I lost my own to,
         The souls I could not save.
     They braced their belts about them,
         They crossed in ships the sea,
     They sought and found six feet of ground,
         And there they died for me.
 

XXXIII

 
     When the eye of day is shut,
         And the stars deny their beams,
     And about the forest hut
         Blows the roaring wood of dreams,
 
 
     From deep clay, from desert rock,
         From the sunk sands of the main,
     Come not at my door to knock,
         Hearts that loved me not again.
 
 
     Sleep, be still, turn to your rest
         In the lands where you are laid;
     In far lodgings east and west
         Lie down on the beds you made.
 
 
     In gross marl, in blowing dust,
         In the drowned ooze of the sea,
     Where you would not, lie you must,
         Lie you must, and not with me.
 

XXXIV

 
     THE FIRST OF MAY
     The orchards half the way
         From home to Ludlow fair
     Flowered on the first of May
         In Mays when I was there;
     And seen from stile or turning
         The plume of smoke would show
     Where fires were burning
         That went out long ago.
 
 
     The plum broke forth in green,
         The pear stood high and snowed,
     My friends and I between
         Would take the Ludlow road;
     Dressed to the nines and drinking
         And light in heart and limb,
     And each chap thinking
         The fair was held for him.
 
 
     Between the trees in flower
         New friends at fairtime tread
     The way where Ludlow tower
         Stands planted on the dead.
     Our thoughts, a long while after,
         They think, our words they say;
     Theirs now's the laughter,
         The fair, the first of May.
 
 
     Ay, yonder lads are yet
         The fools that we were then;
     For oh, the sons we get
         Are still the sons of men.
     The sumless tale of sorrow
         Is all unrolled in vain:
     May comes to-morrow
         And Ludlow fair again.
 

XXXV

 
     When first my way to fair I took
         Few pence in purse had I,
     And long I used to stand and look
         At things I could not buy.
 
 
     Now times are altered:  if I care
         To buy a thing, I can;
     The pence are here and here's the fair,
         But where's the lost young man?
 
 
     —To think that two and two are four
         And neither five nor three
     The heart of man has long been sore
         And long 'tis like to be.
 

XXXVI. REVOLUTION

 
     West and away the wheels of darkness roll,
         Day's beamy banner up the east is borne,
     Spectres and fears, the nightmare and her foal,
         Drown in the golden deluge of the morn.
 
 
     But over sea and continent from sight
         Safe to the Indies has the earth conveyed
     The vast and moon-eclipsing cone of night,
         Her towering foolscap of eternal shade.
 
 
     See, in mid heaven the sun is mounted; hark,
         The belfries tingle to the noonday chime.
     'Tis silent, and the subterranean dark
         Has crossed the nadir, and begins to climb.
 

XXXVII. EPITAPH ON AN ARMY OF MERCENARIES

 
     These, in the day when heaven was falling,
         The hour when earth's foundations fled,
     Followed their mercenary calling
         And took their wages and are dead.
 
 
     Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
         They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
     What God abandoned, these defended,
         And saved the sum of things for pay.
 

XXXVIII

 
     Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough
         The land and not the sea,
     And leave the soldiers at their drill,
     And all about the idle hill
         Shepherd your sheep with me.
 
 
     Oh stay with company and mirth
         And daylight and the air;
     Too full already is the grave
     Of fellows that were good and brave
         And died because they were.
 

XXXIX

 
     When summer's end is nighing
         And skies at evening cloud,
     I muse on change and fortune
         And all the feats I vowed
         When I was young and proud.
 
 
     The weathercock at sunset
         Would lose the slanted ray,
     And I would climb the beacon
         That looked to Wales away
         And saw the last of day.
 
 
     From hill and cloud and heaven
         The hues of evening died;
     Night welled through lane and hollow
         And hushed the countryside,
         But I had youth and pride.
 
 
     And I with earth and nightfall
         In converse high would stand,
     Late, till the west was ashen
         And darkness hard at hand,
         And the eye lost the land.
 
 
     The year might age, and cloudy
         The lessening day might close,
     But air of other summers
         Breathed from beyond the snows,
         And I had hope of those.
 
 
     They came and were and are not
         And come no more anew;
     And all the years and seasons
         That ever can ensue
         Must now be worse and few.
 
 
     So here's an end of roaming
         On eves when autumn nighs:
     The ear too fondly listens
         For summer's parting sighs,
         And then the heart replies.