English Poetry. Alfred Edward Housman. More Poems. 3. For these of Old the Trader. Альфред Эдвард Хаусман (Хаусмен).

Alfred Edward Housman (Альфред Эдвард Хаусман (Хаусмен))

More Poems. 3. For these of Old the Trader

For these of old the trader
  Unpearled the Indian seas,
The nations of the nadir
  Were diamondless for these;
 
A people prone and haggard
  Beheld their lightnings hurled:
All round, like Sinai, staggered
  The sceptre-shaken world.
 
But now their coins are tarnished,
  Their towers decayed away,
Their kingdom swept and garnished
  For haler kings than they;
 
Their arms the rust hath eaten,
  Their statutes none regard:
Arabia shall not sweeten
  Their dust, with all her nard.
 
They cease from long vexation,
  Their nights, their days are done,
The pale, the perished nation
  That never see the sun;
 
From the old deep-dusted annals
  The years erase their tale,
And round them race the channels
  That take no second sail.

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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