#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)

[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.

[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

[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.

[hotelhamartia]

And make the heart of comrades / Be heavy where you die. | Shropshire | Results

Shropshire's flash of confusion as Landlady begins her little shadow puppet play is quickly buried by the wide-eyed awe of the illusion being conjured for them. A small part of him remembers to be happy the rest of the room seems similarly entranced, as he finds himself unable to control the way his eyes react to the magic brought to life before him. It's incredible, it's shocking, it's everything he wanted, it's, it's... Oh, it's a farce. The palm of his hand finds its way to his forehead around the time the gramophone plot is being hatched. It slides up, catching the bridge of his glasses and taking them up with it as it pushes back his hair in exasperation. This is a joke, right? A joke that's being played on him, specifically, right? It must be, that's the only answer for this clownshow he's seeing right now, right? When we get to the room where it happened though, he freezes up, tries to close his eyes like it's become a horror movie that's gotten to much for him, but whether its the doing of magic or his own psyche something makes him watch it all. Yeah, this is a joke just for him. Punishment, too. He blinks as the vision fades, frowning and exhausted. Adjusting his glasses back onto his face he shoots Dolores a... Sympathetic look? A pitying one at least. You can tell he wants to say something, but he's also very practised at gauging how people seated around a big table with him would react to what he has to say. He doesn't think it would be a good reaction right now, not at all. And he looks like he'd have a lot to say. He's restless in his seat staring at her. There's a few people he wants a long private conversation with right now but she's the only one with a time limit. It's just not fair. It's exactly what he deserves. He'll give her one thing at least. It's actually least he could do. If Dolores happens to catch his gaze he'll mouth her these parting words. Good luck.

[considermycat]

I’ve been reading Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, and had resisted looking up where The Famous Bit is – but I just reached it: “those blue remembered hills… the land of lost content”.

Much of A Shropshire Lad, to modern eyes, teeters on the edge of risibility (and quite a bit of it falls in): all those maudlin descriptions of murder and hangings. But this one is something else: you can really see what all the fuss was about here, why the poem became so popular.

[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)

[musicianrambles]

On Wenlock Edge really said. I am grieving I am the product of all my loves I am slowly finding myself I am slowly reverting back to myself I will never be myself again I am forever haunted by my beloved's death I cannot find a place to hold my grief and the beautiful scenery of the south of England isn't enough but Oh. It does make the journey there just that bit more beautiful.

[splendidemendax]

The logical conclusion from this conflicting evidence is that one or more of the principals involved is lying, though it seems nearly impossible to determine at this late date which one(s). Although this mystery is possibly not of that order of importance which would make it mandatory to find a solution, it is nevertheless significant that the false note that rings throughout A Shropshire Lad, at some times more faintly than at others, originates in the very title itself. —peter firchow, "the land of lost content", 108

love that 4 it

[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

[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