Three by Housman II

Poems by Alfred Edward Housman.

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.

(A Shropshire Lad LIV)

Could man be drunk for ever
   With liquor, love, or fights,
Lief should I rouse at morning
   And lief lie down of nights.

But men at whiles are sober
   And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
   Their hands upon their hearts.

(Last Poems X)

Stars, I have seen them fall,
   But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
   From all the star-sown sky.

The toil of all that be
   Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
   And still the sea is salt.

(More Poems VII)

Collected Poems (1940) pp. 80, 109, 166.

See also Three by Housman I: Poems by Alfred Edward Housman.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 12/12/04 08:19:35 AM
Categorized as Literary & Sunday Poetry Series.