#shropshire lad

[poem-today]

A poem by A. E. Housman

A Shropshire Lad 35: On the Idle Hill of Summer

On the idle hill of summer,   Sleepy with the flow of streams, Far I hear the steady drummer   Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder   On the roads of earth go by, Dear to friends and food for powder,   Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten   Bleach the bones of comrades slain, Lovely lads and dead and rotten;   None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,   High the screaming fife replies, Gay the files of scarlet follow:   Woman bore me, I will rise.

A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

Image: Watercolour landscape painting titled Peace and War by David Cox (1783 - 1859). via World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo.

[the-busy-ghost]

So it was that Jonathan Strange spent half of every year of his childhood at Mr Erquistoune's house in Charlotte-square in Edinburgh, where, it is to be presumed, he learnt to hold no very high opinion of his father. There he received his early education in the company of his three cousins, Margaret, Maria, and Georgiana Erquistoune. Edinburgh is certainly one of the most civilized cities in the world and the inhabitants are full as clever and as fond of pleasure as those of London. Whenever he was with them Mr and Mrs Erquistoune did everything they could to make him happy, hoping in this way to make up for the neglect and coldness he met with at his father's house. And so it is not to be wondered at if he grew up a little spoilt, a little fond of his own way and a little inclined to think well of himself.

"Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell", by Susanna Clarke

(The west end of Charlotte Square, Wikimedia Commons)

[spineless-lobster]

A. E. Housman wrote

“If truth in hearts that perish

Could move the powers on high,

I think the love I bear you

Should make you not to die.”

And we all just collectively ignored it and for what

[kom-poetry-channel]

I return to Housman with poem 27 of "A Shropshire Lad", a short meditation about life going on. Which is perhaps less comforting if you're the one it's going on without; such is life, as one might say. As in "Queen of Air and Darkness", Housman's very short text makes me imagine a vast swathe of backstory: Was there a love triangle here before it conveniently collapsed with one point's death? Just how grief-struck was the woman, anyway? The dead man's question implies that she wept nightly at some point, but presumably he did not personally observe this.

I had some difficulty finding reasonably thematic images in a consistent style, which is why "used to plough" and "never ask me whose" are AI-generated. The state of the art seems to have advanced immensely since the last time I used image generation, for "Battle Hymn". Both of these are zero-shot, no infill or repeated tweaking of the prompt, except that "England 1900" gave me an upper-class interior on the first attempt which didn't quite have the vibe I was looking for; specifying "a forest in rural England" fixed the background.

No particular comments on the text this time, except to note that I have faithfully reproduced the infelicity of "used to drive / and hear the harness"; perhaps this is intended as a dialect form? It's an odd transition in received-grammar English.

[nihmue]

Wakes the silver dusk returning

Up the beach of darkness brims,

And the ship of sunrise burning

Strands upon the eastern rims.

Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,

Trampled to the floor it spanned,

And the tent of night in tatters

Straws the sky-pavilioned land.

Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:

Hear the drums of morning play:

Hark, the empty highways crying

"Who'll beyond the hills away?'

Towns and countries woo together,

Forelands beacon, belfries call;

Never lad that trod on leather

Lived to feast his heart with all.

Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber

Sunlit pallets never thrive;

Morns abed and daylight slumber

Were not meant for man alive.

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;

Breath's a ware that will not keep.

Up, lad: when the journey's over

There'll be time enough to sleep.

A. E. Houston, Reveille

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"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."

Read the entire thing here (thanks Project Gutenberg!)

Reblog for a larger sample size!

[itspileofgoodthings]

[amusingmorley]

On the Idle Hill of Summer

from A Shropshire Lad by AE Housman

On the idle hill of summer,

Sleepy with the flow of streams,

Far I hear the steady drummer

Drumming like a noise in dreams.

Far and near and low and louder

On the roads of earth go by,

Dear to friends and food for powder,

Soldiers marching, all to die.

East and west on fields forgotten

Bleach the bones of comrades slain,

Lovely lads and dead and rotten;

None that go return again.

Far the calling bugles hollo,

High the screaming fife replies,

Gay the files of scarlet follow:

Woman bore me, I will rise.

[thesquireinvictus]

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.

Loveliest of Trees | A. E. Housman

[poem-today]

A poem by A. E. Housman

A Shropshire Lad 31: On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;      His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves; The gale, it plies the saplings double,      And thick on Severn snow the leaves. 'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger      When Uricon the city stood: 'Tis the old wind in the old anger,      But then it threshed another wood. Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman      At yonder heaving hill would stare: The blood that warms an English yeoman,      The thoughts that hurt him, they were there. There, like the wind through woods in riot,      Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet:      Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I. The gale, it plies the saplings double,      It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone: To-day the Roman and his trouble      Are ashes under Uricon.

A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

[culturevulturette]

From A Shropshire Lad  

Into my heart an air that kills  From yon far country blows:  What are those blue remembered hills,  What spires, what farms are those?  This is the land of lost content,  I see it shining plain,  The happy highways where I went  And cannot come again.  

A E. Houseman

[bwthornton]

A Shropshire Lad 31: On Wenlock Edge the wood's in touble by A. E. Housman

#AEHousman #OnWenlockEdge #AShropshireLad #poetry #poetrycommunity #WritingCommunity #photography

A Shropshire Lad 31: On Wenlock Edge the wood's in touble by A. E. Housman

#AEHousman #OnWenlockEdge #AShropshireLad #poetry #poetrycommunity #WritingCommunity #photography

[wellconstructedsentences]

So here I’ll watch the night and wait

To see the morning shine

When he will hear the stroke of eight

And now the stroke of nine.

A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman

[inpotatoeswetrust]

"Fellas, are you lot who's been sent to pick up the Americans?" The guy at the desk said. He wore a standard military doctor uniform, the British equivalent of Captain but without the RAF wings above the left pocket.

"Yes, our CO was contacted, we're here for any boys from the Hundredth." Rosie said, producing a piece of paper from nowhere to show the doctor.

"Right, yeah, one of yous stay here and the rest of ya clear out."

The four of them looked at each other briefly before they volunteered John to stay with just a look. Rosie took back his paper from the doctor with another one that looked like a list, then promptly left. Gale left last, looking back at John with a warning in his eyes. 'Don't fuck this up.'

Or, John and Gale are sent to a different county to retrive some released POWs.

(Title and poetry stanza in above image is from 'A Shropshire Lad' by Housman)

[alienoresimagines]

Clegan in A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems by A. E. Houseman (Part 4)

More poems : XXIV // XXX // XXXI // XXXVII // XLII // XLVI

Additional poems : II // IV // VI // VII

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

[ratatoskryggdrasil]

Agnes Miller Parker woodcut illustrations for A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman