To darkness and silence and slumber
In blood and pain.
So ceases and turns to the thing
He was born to be
A soldier cheap to the King
And dear to me;
So smothers in blood the burning
And flaming flight
Of valour and truth returning
To dust and night.
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The world goes none the lamer
Because this cursed troubleHas struck my days and me.The stars of heaven are steady,The founded hills remain,Though I to earth and darknessReturn in blood and pain.Farewell to all belongingsI won or bought or stole;Farewell, my lusty carcase,Farewell, my aery soul.Oh worse remains for othersAnd worse to fear had IThan here at four-and-twentyTo lay me down…
On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,And thick on Severn snow the leaves.‘Twould blow like this through holt and hangerWhen Uricon the city stood;‘Tis the old wind in the old anger,But then it threshed another wood.Then, ’twas before my time, the RomanAt yonder heaving hill would stare;The blood that warms an English yeoman,The thoughts that…
From far, from eve and morning
The stuff of life to knit meBlew hither: here am I.Now– for a breath I tarryNor yet disperse apart–Take my hand quick and tell me,What have you in your heart.Speak now, and I will answer;How shall I help you, say;Ere to the wind’s twelve quartersI take my endless way.
Far in a western brookland
The poplars stand and trembleBy pools I used to know.There, in the windless night-time,The wanderer, marvelling why,Halts on the bridge to hearkenHow soft the poplars sigh.He hears: no more rememberedIn fields where I was known,Here I lie down in LondonAnd turn to rest alone.There, by the starlit fences,The wanderer halts and hearsMy soul that lingers…
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
And stands about the woodland rideWearing 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 bloomFifty springs are little room,About the woodlands I will goTo see the cherry hung with snow.
The star-filled seas are smooth to-night
Black towers above the Portland lightThe felon-quarried stone.On yonder island, not to rise,Never to stir forth free,Far from his folk a dead lad liesThat once was friends with me.Lie you easy, dream you light,And sleep you fast for aye;And luckier may you find the nightThan ever you found the day.