Housman Country

by Peter Parker

  ‘When shall this slough of sense be cast,

  This dust of thoughts be laid at last,

  The man of flesh and soul be slain

  And the man of bone remain?

  ‘This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,

  These thews that hustle us about,

  This brain that fills the skull with schemes,

  And its humming hive of dreams, –

  ‘These to-day are proud in power

  And lord it in their little hour:

  The immortal bones obey control

  Of dying flesh and dying soul.

  ‘’Tis long till eve and morn are gone:

  Slow the endless night comes on,

  And late to fulness grows the birth

  That shall last as long as earth.

  ‘Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,

  Know you why you cannot rest?

  ’Tis that every mother’s son

  Travails with a skeleton.

  ‘Lie down in the bed of dust;

  Bear the fruit that bear you must;

  Bring the eternal seed to light,

  And morn is all the same as night.

  ‘Rest you so from trouble sore,

  Fear the heat o’ the sun no more,

  Nor the snowing winter wild,

  Now you labour not with child.

  ‘Empty vessel, garment cast,

  We that wore you long shall last.

  – Another night, another day.’

  So my bones within me say.

  Therefore they shall do my will

  To-day while I am master still,

  And flesh and soul, now both are strong,

  Shall hale the sullen slaves along,

  Before this fire of sense decay,

  This smoke of thought blow clean away,

  And leave with ancient night alone

  The stedfast and enduring bone.

  XLIV

  Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?

  Oh that was right, lad, that was brave:

  Yours was not an ill for mending,

  ’Twas best to take it to the grave.

  Oh you had forethought, you could reason,

  And saw your road and where it led,

  And early wise and brave in season

  Put the pistol to your head.

  Oh soon, and better so than later

  After long disgrace and scorn,

  You shot dead the household traitor,

  The soul that should not have been born.

  Right you guessed the rising morrow

  And scorned to tread the mire you must:

  Dust’s your wages, son of sorrow,

  But men may come to worse than dust.

  Souls undone, undoing others, –

  Long time since the tale began.

  You would not live to wrong your brothers:

  Oh lad, you died as fits a man.

  Now to your grave shall friend and stranger

  With ruth and some with envy come:

  Undishonoured, clear of danger,

  Clean of guilt, pass hence and home.

  Turn safe to rest, no dreams, no waking;

  And here, man, here’s the wreath I’ve made:

  ’Tis not a gift that’s worth the taking,

  But wear it and it will not fade.

  XLV

  If it chance your eye offend you,

  Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:

  ’Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,

  And many a balsam grows on ground.

  And if your hand or foot offend you,

  Cut it off, lad, and be whole;

  But play the man, stand up and end you,

  When your sickness is your soul.

  XLVI

  Bring, in this timeless grave to throw,

  No cypress, sombre on the snow;

  Snap not from the bitter yew

  His leaves that live December through;

  Break no rosemary, bright with rime

  And sparkling to the cruel clime;

  Nor plod the winter land to look

  For willows in the icy brook

  To cast them leafless round him: bring

  No spray that ever buds in spring.

  But if the Christmas field has kept

  Awns the last gleaner overstept,

  Or shrivelled flax, whose flower is blue

  A single season, never two;

  Or if one haulm whose year is o’er

  Shivers on the upland frore,

  – Oh, bring from hill and stream and plain

  Whatever will not flower again,

  To give him comfort: he and those

  Shall bide eternal bedfellows

  Where low upon the couch he lies

  Whence he never shall arise.

  XLVII

  The Carpenter’s Son

  ‘Here the hangman stops his cart:

  Now the best of friends must part.

  Fare you well, for ill fare I:

  Live, lads, and I will die.

  ‘Oh, at home had I but stayed

  ’Prenticed to my father’s trade,

  Had I stuck to plane and adze,

  I had not been lost, my lads.

  ‘Then I might have built perhaps

  Gallows-trees for other chaps,

  Never dangled on my own,

  Had I but left ill alone.

  ‘Now, you see, they hang me high,

  And the people passing by

  Stop to shake their fists and curse;

  So ’tis come from ill to worse.

  ‘Here hang I, and right and left

  Two poor fellows hang for theft:

  All the same’s the luck we prove,

  Though the midmost hangs for love.

  ‘Comrades all, that stand and gaze,

  Walk henceforth in other ways;

  See my neck and save your own:

  Comrades all, leave ill alone.

  ‘Make some day a decent end,

  Shrewder fellows than your friend.

  Fare you well, for ill fare I:

  Live, lads, and I will die.’

  XLVIII

  Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,

  Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.

  Think rather, – call to thought, if now you grieve a little,

  The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.

  Men loved unkindness 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 indignation –

  Oh 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 stept 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: no more remembered

  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 than I

  Strip to bathe on Severn shore,

  They, no help, for all they try,

  Tread the mill I trod before.

  There, when hueless is the west

  And the darkness hushes wide,

  Where the lad lies down to rest

  Stands the troubled dream beside.

  There, on thoughts that once were mine,

  Day looks down the eastern steep,

  And the youth at morning shine

  Makes the vow he will not keep.

  LVI

  The Day of Battle

  ‘Far I hear the bugle blow

  To call me where I would not go,

  And the guns begin the song,

  “Soldier, fly or stay for long.”

  ‘Comrade, if to turn and fly

  Made a soldier never die,

  Fly I would, for who would not?

  ’Tis sure no pleasure to be shot.

  ‘But since the man that runs away

  Lives to die another day,

  And cowards’ funerals, when they come,

  Are not wept so well at home,

  ‘Therefore, though the best is bad,

  Stand and do the best, my lad;

  Stand and fight and see your slain,

  And take the bullet in your brain.’

  LVII

  You smile upon your friend to-day,

  To-day his ills are over;

  You hearken to the lover’s say,

  And happy is the lover.

  ’Tis late to hearken, late to smile,

  But better late than never:

  I shall have lived a little while

  Before I die for ever.

  LVIII

  When I came last to Ludlow

  Amidst the moonlight pale,

  Two friends kept step beside me,

  Two honest lads and hale.

  Now Dick lies long in the churchyard,

  And Ned lies long in jail,

  And I come home to Ludlow

  Amidst the moonlight pale.

  LIX

  The Isle of Portland

  The star-filled seas are smooth to-night

  From France to England strown;

  Black towers above the Portland light

  The felon-quarried stone.

  On yonder island, not to rise,

  Never to stir forth free,

  Far from his folk a dead lad lies

  That once was friends with me.

  Lie you easy, dream you light,

  And sleep you fast for aye;

  And luckier may you find the night

  Than ever you found the day.

  LX

  Now hollow fires burn out to black,

  And lights are gutterin
g low:

  Square your shoulders, lift your pack,

  And leave your friends and go.

  Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread,

  Look not left nor right:

  In all the endless road you tread

  There’s nothing but the night.

  LXI

  Hughley Steeple

  The vane on Hughley steeple

  Veers bright, a far-known sign,

  And there lie Hughley people,

  And there lie friends of mine.

  Tall in their midst the tower

  Divides the shade and sun,

  And the clock strikes the hour

  And tells the time to none.

  To south the headstones cluster,

  The sunny mounds lie thick;

  The dead are more in muster

  At Hughley than the quick.

  North, for a soon-told number,

  Chill graves the sexton delves,

  And steeple-shadowed slumber

  The slayers of themselves.

  To north, to south, lie parted,

  With Hughley tower above,

  The kind, the single-hearted,

  The lads I used to love.

  And, south or north, ’tis only

  A choice of friends one knows,

  And I shall ne’er be lonely

  Asleep with these or those.

  LXII

  ‘Terence, this is stupid stuff: