Sunday Poetry - A E Housman

I've spent a lot of time in the garden this weekend - digging over a garden bed full of roots, digging in compost in the front garden & planting tomatoes, pumpkin, lettuce, basil & zucchini in the veggie patch. This poem seemed appropriate although I wasn't thinking about lying beneath the ground as I worked, I was looking forward to a cup of tea & a rest.

Next week, I think I'll move on from Housman's melancholy to something more cheerful.

I hoed and trenched and weeded,   
  And took the flowers to fair:   
I brought them home unheeded;   
  The hue was not the wear.   

So up and down I sow them           
  For lads like me to find,   
When I shall lie below them,   
  A dead man out of mind.   

Some seed the birds devour,   
  And some the season mars,           
But here and there will flower   
  The solitary stars,   

And fields will yearly bear them   
  As light-leaved spring comes on,   
And luckless lads will wear them           
  When I am dead and gone.

Sunday Poetry - A E Housman

Even Housman's humour has a melancholy edge to it. This is one of those poems when the dead speak to the living but this poor young man, lying in his grave, doesn't get the reassurance that he's looking for.

Is my team ploughing,   
  That I was used to drive   
And hear the harness jingle   
  When I was man alive?’   

Ay, the horses trample,           
  The harness jingles now;   
No change though you lie under   
  The land you used to plough.   

‘Is football playing   
  Along the river shore,           
With lads to chase the leather,   
  Now I stand up no more?’   

Ay, the ball is flying,   
  The lads play heart and soul;   
The goal stands up, the keeper           
  Stands up to keep the goal.   

‘Is my girl happy,   
  That I thought hard to leave,   
And has she tired of weeping   
  As she lies down at eve?’           

Ay, she lies down lightly,   
  She lies not down to weep:   
Your girl is well contented.   
  Be still, my lad, and sleep.   

‘Is my friend hearty,           
  Now I am thin and pine,   
And has he found to sleep in   
  A better bed than mine?’   

Yes, lad, I lie easy,   
  I lie as lads would choose;           
I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart,   
  Never ask me whose.

Sunday Poetry - A E Housman

I like the imagery in this poem of the young man's aching hand, aching from all the hands he's shaken in goodwill as he leaves his home for London. I wonder if he'll look back in later years & think he lived up to his friends' expectations?

As through the wild green hills of Wyre   
The train ran, changing sky and shire,   
And far behind, a fading crest,   
Low in the forsaken west   
Sank the high-reared head of Clee,           
My hand lay empty on my knee.   
Aching on my knee it lay:   
That morning half a shire away   
So many an honest fellow’s fist   
Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist.           
Hand, said I, since now we part   
From fields and men we know by heart,   
For strangers’ faces, strangers’ lands,—   
Hand, you have held true fellows’ hands.   
Be clean then; rot before you do           
A thing they’d not believe of you.   
You and I must keep from shame   
In London streets the Shropshire name;   
On banks of Thames they must not say   
Severn breeds worse men than they;           
And friends abroad must bear in mind   
Friends at home they leave behind.   
Oh, I shall be stiff and cold   
When I forget you, hearts of gold;   
The land where I shall mind you not           
Is the land where all ’s forgot.   
And if my foot returns no more   
To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore,   
Luck, my lads, be with you still   
By falling stream and standing hill,           
By chiming tower and whispering tree,   
Men that made a man of me.   
About your work in town and farm   
Still you’ll keep my head from harm,   
Still you’ll help me, hands that gave           
A grasp to friend me to the grave.

Sunday Poetry - A E Housman

Spring has arrived in Melbourne & this poem feels right for the season. Housman reminds me of Thomas Hardy in his ability to find the melancholy side of almost any situation. This young man may be honest & true but I think his lady love is right to be cautious.

Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers   
Are lying in field and lane,   
With dandelions to tell the hours   
That never are told again.   
Oh may I squire you round the meads           
And pick you posies gay?   
—’Twill do no harm to take my arm.    
’You may, young man, you may.’   

Ah, spring was sent for lass and lad,   
Tis now the blood runs gold,           
And man and maid had best be glad   
Before the world is old.   
What flowers to-day may flower to-morrow,   
But never as good as new.   
—Suppose I wound my arm right round—           
‘’Tis true, young man, ’tis true.’   

Some lads there are, ’tis shame to say,   
That only court to thieve,   
And once they bear the bloom away   
’Tis little enough they leave.           
Then keep your heart for men like me   
And safe from trustless chaps.   
My love is true and all for you.   
‘Perhaps, young man, perhaps.’   

Oh, look in my eyes then, can you doubt?           
—Why, ’tis a mile from town.   
How green the grass is all about!   
We might as well sit down.   
—Ah, life, what is it but a flower?   
Why must true lovers sigh?           
Be kind, have pity, my own, my pretty,—   
‘Good-bye, young man, good-bye.’

Sunday Poetry - A E Housman

Something a little cheerier than last week although there's still melancholy in this lovely poem about an old man looking back on his life. Another poem set to music by George Butterworth & sung here by Bryn Terfel.

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.   

Sunday Poetry - A E Housman

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'll be featuring Housman's A Shropshire Lad here for the next few weeks. Even though the poems were published in 1896, for me, many of them are inescapably connected to WWI. I think it's because several of the poems were set to music by George Butterworth, who was killed in 1916. I recently listened to a radio documentary about some of the composers involved in the War which reminded me of these poems. I've also become addicted to BBC Radio's drama series, Home Front, which is set in Folkestone during WWI & is ambitiously planned to run for the next four years, with a 15 min episode every weekday. I've been catching up with the omnibus episodes, thanks to Darleen at Cosy Books, & I'm completely addicted!

The subject matter of some of the poems is very melancholic as well, almost prophetic, as in one of my favourites, The Lads in Their Hundreds. The song setting by Butterworth is just beautiful &, of course, no one can sing it like Bryn Terfel.

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There's chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there's nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.