English Poetry. Alfred Edward Housman. Last Poems. 30. Sinner’s Rue. Альфред Эдвард Хаусман (Хаусмен).

Alfred Edward Housman (Альфред Эдвард Хаусман (Хаусмен))

Last Poems. 30. Sinner’s Rue

I walked alone and thinking,
        And faint the nightwind blew
And stirred on mounds at crossways
        The flower of sinner’s rue.

Where the roads part they bury
        Him that his own hand slays,
And so the weed of sorrow
        Springs at the four cross ways.

By night I plucked it hueless,
        When morning broke ’twas blue:
Blue at my breast I fastened
        The flower of sinner’s rue.

It seemed a herb of healing,
        A balsam and a sign,
Flower of a heart whose trouble
        Must have been worse than mine.

Dead clay that did me kindness,
        I can do none to you,
But only wear for breastknot
        The flower of sinner’s rue.

Alfred Edward Housman’s other poems:

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

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