A Shropshire Lad Part 1

A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad.

by A. E. Housman.

INTRODUCTION

The method of the poems in _ A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad _ ill.u.s.trates better than any theory how poetry may a.s.sume the attire of reality, and yet in speech of the simplest, become in spirit the sheer quality of loveliness. For, in these un.o.btrusive pages, there is nothing shunned which makes the spectacle of life parade its dark and painful, its ironic and cynical burdens, as well as those images with happy and exquisite aspects. With a broader and deeper background of experience and environment, which by some divine special privilege belongs to the poetic imagination, it is easier to set apart and contrast these opposing words and sympathies in a poet; but here we find them evoked in a restricted locale- an English county-where the rich, cool tranquil landscape gives a solid texture to the human show. What, I think, impresses one, thrills, like ecstatic, half-smothered strains of music, floating from unperceived instruments, in Mr. Housman's poems, is the encounter his spirit constantly endures with life. It is, this encounter, what you feel in the Greeks, and as in the Greeks, it is a spiritual waging of miraculous forces. There is, too, in Mr. Housman's poems, the singularly Grecian Quality of a clean and fragrant mental and emotional temper, vibrating equally whether the theme dealt with is ruin or defeat, or some great tragic crisis of spirit, or with moods and ardours of pure enjoyment and simplicities of feeling. Scarcely has any modern book of poems shown so sure a touch of genius in this respect: the magic, in a continuous glow saturating the substance of every picture and motive with its own peculiar essence.

What has been called the "cynical bitterness" of Mr. Housman's poems, is really nothing more than his ability to etch in sharp tones the actualities of experience. The poet himself is never cynical; his joyousness is all too apparent in the very manner and intensity of expression. The "lads" of Ludlow are so human to him, the hawthorn and broom on the Severn sh.o.r.es are so fragrant with a.s.sociations, he cannot help but compose under a kind of imaginative wizardry of exultation, even when the immediate subject is grim or grotesque. In many of these brief, tense poems the reader confronts a mask, as it were, with appalling and distorted lineaments; but behind it the poet smiles, perhaps sardonically, but smiles nevertheless. In the real countenance there are no tears or grievances, but a quizzical, humorous expression which shows, when one has torn the subterfuge away, that here is a spirit whom life may menace with its contradictions and fatalities, but never dupe with its circ.u.mstance and mystery.

All this quite points to, and partly explains, the charm of the poems in _ A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad _. The fastidious care with which each poem is built out of the simplest of technical elements, the precise tone and color of language employed to articulate impulse and mood, and the reproduction of objective substances for a clear visualization of character and scene, all tend by a sure and unfaltering composition, to present a lyric art unique in English poetry of the last twenty-five years.

I dare say I have scarcely touched upon the secret of Mr. Housman's book. For some it may radiate from the Shrops.h.i.+re life he so finely etches; for others, in the vivid artistic simplicity and unity of values, through which Shrops.h.i.+re lads and landscapes are presented. It must be, however, in the miraculous fusing of the two. Whatever that secret is, the charm of it never fails after all these years to keep the poems preserved with a freshness and vitality, which are the qualities of enduring genius.

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

A SHROPs.h.i.+RE LAD

I

1887

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns, The s.h.i.+res have seen it plain, From north and south the sign returns And beacons burn again.

Look left, look right, the hills are bright, The dales are light between, Because 'tis fifty years to-night That G.o.d has saved the Queen.

Now, when the flame they watch not towers About the soil they trod, Lads, we'll remember friends of ours Who shared the work with G.o.d.

To skies that knit their heartstrings right, To fields that bred them brave, The saviours come not home to-night: Themselves they could not save.

It dawns in Asia, tombstones show And Shrops.h.i.+re names are read; And the Nile spills his overflow Beside the Severn's dead.

We pledge in peace by farm and town The Queen they served in war, And fire the beacons up and down The land they perished for.

"G.o.d Save the Queen" we living sing, From height to height 'tis heard; And with the rest your voices ring, Lads of the Fifty-third.

Oh, G.o.d will save her, fear you not: Be you the men you've been, Get you the sons your fathers got, And G.o.d will Save the Queen.

II

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.

III

THE RECRUIT

Leave your home behind, lad, And reach your friends your hand, And go, and luck go with you While Ludlow tower shall stand.

Oh, come you home of Sunday When Ludlow streets are still And Ludlow bells are calling To farm and lane and mill,

Or come you home of Monday When Ludlow market hums And Ludlow chimes are playing "The conquering hero comes,"

Come you home a hero, Or come not home at all, The lads you leave will mind you Till Ludlow tower shall fall.

And you will list the bugle That blows in lands of morn, And make the foes of England Be sorry you were born.

And you till trump of doomsday On lands of morn may lie, And make the hearts of comrades Be heavy where you die.

Leave your home behind you, Your friends by field and town Oh, town and field will mind you Till Ludlow tower is down.

IV

REVEILLE

Wake: the silver dusk returning Up the beach of darkness brims, And the s.h.i.+p 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 c.u.mber 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.

V

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.