A Shropshire Lad

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,        *

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.

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.

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 say--

Once, 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.

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.

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 woman

His heart and soul away.

There flowers no balm to sain him

From east of earth to west

That's lost for everlasting

The heart out of his breast.

Here by the labouring highway

With empty hands I stroll:

Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,

Lie lost my heart and soul.

Look not in my eyes, for fear

They mirror true the sight I see,

And there you find your face too clear

And love it and be lost like me.

One the long nights through must lie

Spent in star-defeated sighs,

But why should you as well as I

Perish? gaze not in my eyes.

A Grecian lad, as I hear tell,

One that many loved in vain,

Looked into a forest well

And never looked away again.

There, when the turf in springtime flowers,

With downward eye and gazes sad,

Stands amid the glancing showers

A jonquil, not a Grecian lad.

It nods and curtseys and recovers

When the wind blows above,

The nettle on the graves of lovers

That hanged themselves for love.

The nettle nods, the wind blows over,

The man, he does not move,

The lover of the grave, the lover

That hanged himself for love.

Twice a week the winter thorough

Here stood I to keep the goal:

Football then was fighting sorrow

For the young man's soul.

Now in Maytime to the wicket

Out I march with bat and pad:

See the son of grief at cricket

Trying to be glad.

Try I will; no harm in trying:

Wonder 'tis how little mirth

Keeps the bones of man from lying

On the bed of earth.

Oh fair enough are sky and plain,

But I know fairer far:

Those are as beautiful again

That in the water are;

The pools and rivers wash so clean

The trees and clouds and air,

The like on earth has never seen,

And oh that I were there.

These are the thoughts I often think

As I stand gazing down

In act upon the cressy brink

To strip and dive and drown;

But in the golden-sanded brooks

And azure meres I spy

A silly lad that longs and looks

And wishes he were I.

BREDON HILL

In summertime on Bredon

The bells they sound so clear;

Round both the shires the ring them

In steeples far and near,

A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning

My love and I would lie,

And see the coloured counties,

And hear the larks so high

About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her

In valleys miles away:

"Come all to church, good people;

Good people, come and pray."

But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer

Among the springing thyme,

"Oh, peal upon our wedding,

And we will hear the chime,

And come to church in time."

But when the snows at Christmas

On Bredon top were strown,

My love rose up so early

And stole out unbeknown

And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,

Groom there was none to see,

The mourners followed after,

And so to church went she,

And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon

And still the steeples hum.

"Come all to church, good people,"--

Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;

I hear you, I will come.