West and away the wheels of darkness roll,

With dandelions to tell the hoursThat never are told again.Oh may I squire you round the meadsAnd 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 gladBefore the world is…

The bridges from the steepled crestCross the water east and west.The flag of morn in conqueror’s stateEnters at the English gate:The vanquished eve, as night prevails,Bleeds upon the road to Wales.Ages since the vanquished bledRound my mother’s marriage-bed;There the ravens feasted farAbout the open house of war:When Severn down to Buildwas ranColoured with the death…

If at death’s own door he lies,Maiden, you can heal his ail.Lovers’ ills are all to buy:The wan look, the hollow tone,The hung head, the sunken eye,You can have them for your own.Buy them, buy them: eve and mornLovers’ ills are all to sell.Then you can lie down forlorn;But the lover will be well.

You hearken to the lover’s say,And happy is the lover.‘Tis late to hearken, late to smile,But better late than never;I shall have lived a little whileBefore I die for ever.

Lads that waste the light in sighingIn the dark should sigh no more;Night should ease a lover’s sorrow;Therefore, since I go to-morrow,Pity me before.In the land to which I travel,The far dwelling, let me say–Once, if here the couch is gravel,In a kinder bed I lay,And the breast the darnel smothersRested once upon another’sWhen it…

Dost send abroad thy children,And then dost call them home,That men and tribes and nationsAnd all thy hand hath madeMay shelter them from sunshineIn thine eternal shade:We now to peace and darknessAnd earth and thee restoreThy creature that thou madestAnd wilt cast forth no more.

And far behind, a fading crest,Low in the forsaken westSank the high-reared head of Clee,My hand lay empty on my knee.Aching on my knee it lay:That morning half a shire awaySo many an honest fellow’s fistHad well-nigh wrung it from the wrist.Hand, said I, since now we partFrom fields and men we know by heart,For…

And yon the gallows used to clankFast by the four cross ways.A careless shepherd once would keepThe flocks by moonlight there, *And high amongst the glimmering sheepThe dead man stood on air.They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:The whistles blow forlorn,And trains all night groan on the railTo men that die at morn.There sleeps in…

Oh I will sit me down and weepFor bones in Africa.For pay and medals, name and rank,Things that he has not found,He hove the Cross to heaven and sankThe pole-star underground.And now he does not even seeSigns of the nadir rollAt night over the ground where heIs buried with the pole.

Warm with the blood of lads I knowComes east the sighing air.It fanned their temples, filled their lungs,Scattered their forelocks free;My friends made words of it with tonguesThat talk no more to me.Their voices, dying as they fly,Thick on the wind are sown;The names of men blow soundless by,My fellows’ and my own.Oh lads, at…

And hear the harness jingleWhen I was man alive?’Ay, the horses trample,The harness jingles now;No change though you lie underThe land you used to plough.‘Is football playingAlong 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 keeperStands up…

The numberless, the lonely,The thronger of the land,The leaf that hurts the hand.That thrives, come sun, come showers;Blow east, blow west, it springs;It peoples towns, and towersAbove the courts of Kings,And touch it and it stings.