Alfred Edward Housman (Альфред Эдвард Хаусман (Хаусмен))

A Shropshire Lad. 28. The Welsh Marches

High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam
Islanded in Severn stream;
The bridges from the steepled crest
Cross the water east and west.

The flag of morn in conqueror's state
Enters at the English gate:
The vanquished eve, as night prevails,
Bleeds upon the road to Wales.

Ages since the vanquished bled
Round my mother's marriage-bed;
There the ravens feasted far
About the open house of war:

When Severn down to Buildwas ran
Coloured with the death of man,
Couched upon her brother's grave
That Saxon got me on the slave.

The sound of fight is silent long
That began the ancient wrong;
Long the voice of tears is still
That wept of old the endless ill.

In my heart it has not died,
The war that sleeps on Severn side;
They cease not fighting, east and west,
On the marches of my breat.

Here the truceless armies yet
Trample, rolled in blood and sweat;
They kill and kill and never die;
And I think that each is I.

None will part us, none undo
The knot that makes one flesh of two,
Sick with hatred, sick with pain,
Strangling-- When shall we be slain?

When shall I be dead and rid
Of the wrong my father did?
How long, how long, till spade and hearse
Puts to sleep my mother's curse? 

Alfred Edward Housman’s other poems:

  1. Last Poems. 19. In Midnights of November
  2. Last Poems. 14. The Culprit
  3. Last Poems. 20. The Night Is Freezing Fast
  4. Last Poems. 27. The Sigh That Heaves the Grasses
  5. More Poems. 14. The Farms of Home Lie Lost in Even




To the dedicated English version of this website