A Shropshire Lad

Houses - Schnitkunst by Nigel A.  JAMES

From A Shropshire Lad


A Shropshire Lad is a cycle of sixty-three poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman. Some of the better known poems are “To an Athlete Dying Young”, “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now” and “When I was One-and-Twenty”.

The collection was published in 1896. Housman originally called the work “The Poems of Terence Hearsay”, according to one of the characters portrayed, but, altered the title following a suggestion by his publisher.

The main theme of A Shropshire Lad is mortality, and so living life to its fullest! After all, death can strike at any time!

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 cast 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.


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