When I would muse in boyhood The wild green woods among, And nurse resolves and fancies Because the world was young, It was not foes to conquer, Nor sweethearts to be kind, But it was friends to die for That I would seek and find.
I sought them far and found them, The sure, the straight, the brave, The hearts I lost my own to, The souls I could not save. They braced their belts about them, They crossed in ships the sea, They sought and found six feet of ground, And there they died for me.
XXXIII
When the eye of day is shut, And the stars deny their beams, And about the forest hut Blows the roaring wood of dreams,
From deep clay, from desert rock, From the sunk sands of the main, Come not at my door to knock, Hearts that loved me not again.
Sleep, be still, turn to your rest In the lands where you are laid; In far lodgings east and west Lie down on the beds you made.
In gross marl, in blowing dust, In the drowned ooze of the sea, Where you would not, lie you must, Lie you must, and not with me.
XXXIV
THE FIRST OF MAY The orchards half the way From home to Ludlow fair Flowered on the first of May In Mays when I was there; And seen from stile or turning The plume of smoke would show Where fires were burning That went out long ago.
The plum broke forth in green, The pear stood high and snowed, My friends and I between Would take the Ludlow road; Dressed to the nines and drinking And light in heart and limb, And each chap thinking The fair was held for him.
Between the trees in flower New friends at fairtime tread The way where Ludlow tower Stands planted on the dead. Our thoughts, a long while after, They think, our words they say; Theirs now's the laughter, The fair, the first of May.
Ay, yonder lads are yet The fools that we were then; For oh, the sons we get Are still the sons of men. The sumless tale of sorrow Is all unrolled in vain: May comes to-morrow And Ludlow fair again.
XXXV
When first my way to fair I took Few pence in purse had I, And long I used to stand and look At things I could not buy.
Now times are altered: if I care To buy a thing, I can; The pence are here and here's the fair, But where's the lost young man?
—To think that two and two are four And neither five nor three The heart of man has long been sore And long 'tis like to be.
XXXVI. REVOLUTION
West and away the wheels of darkness roll, Day's beamy banner up the east is borne, Spectres and fears, the nightmare and her foal, Drown in the golden deluge of the morn.
But over sea and continent from sight Safe to the Indies has the earth conveyed The vast and moon-eclipsing cone of night, Her towering foolscap of eternal shade.
See, in mid heaven the sun is mounted; hark, The belfries tingle to the noonday chime. 'Tis silent, and the subterranean dark Has crossed the nadir, and begins to climb.
XXXVII. EPITAPH ON AN ARMY OF MERCENARIES
These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended; They stood, and earth's foundations stay; What God abandoned, these defended, And saved the sum of things for pay.
XXXVIII
Oh stay at home, my lad, and plough The land and not the sea, And leave the soldiers at their drill, And all about the idle hill Shepherd your sheep with me.
Oh stay with company and mirth And daylight and the air; Too full already is the grave Of fellows that were good and brave And died because they were.
XXXIX
When summer's end is nighing And skies at evening cloud, I muse on change and fortune And all the feats I vowed When I was young and proud.
The weathercock at sunset Would lose the slanted ray, And I would climb the beacon That looked to Wales away And saw the last of day.
From hill and cloud and heaven The hues of evening died; Night welled through lane and hollow And hushed the countryside, But I had youth and pride.
And I with earth and nightfall In converse high would stand, Late, till the west was ashen And darkness hard at hand, And the eye lost the land.
The year might age, and cloudy The lessening day might close, But air of other summers Breathed from beyond the snows, And I had hope of those.
They came and were and are not And come no more anew; And all the years and seasons That ever can ensue Must now be worse and few.
So here's an end of roaming On eves when autumn nighs: The ear too fondly listens For summer's parting sighs, And then the heart replies.