No More Learning

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 shores are so fragrant with associations, 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 circumstance and mystery.

All this quite points to, and partly explains, the charm of the poems in
_ A Shropshire 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 Shropshire life he so finely
etches; for others, in the vivid artistic simplicity and unity of
values, through which Shropshire 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 SHROPSHIRE LAD



I

1887

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires 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 God 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 God.

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 Shropshire 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.

"God 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, God will save her, fear you not:
Be you the men you've been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
And God 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 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.