The Project Gutenberg EBook of Last Poems, by A. E. Housman

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Title: Last Poems

Author: A. E. Housman

Release Date: January 28, 2007 [EBook #7848]
Posting Date: August 3, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST POEMS ***

Produced by A. P. Saulters

LAST POEMS

By A. E. Housman

I publish these poems, few though they are, because it is not likely
that I shall ever be impelled to write much more. I can no longer
expect to be revisited by the continuous excitement under which in
the early months of 1895 I wrote the greater part of my first book,
nor indeed could I well sustain it if it came; and it is best that what
I have written should be printed while I am here to see it through
the press and control its spelling and punctuation. About a quarter
of this matter belongs to the April of the present year, but most of
it to dates between 1895 and 1910.

September 1922

We'll to the woods no more,
The laurels are all cut,
The bowers are bare of bay
That once the Muses wore;
The year draws in the day
And soon will evening shut:
The laurels all are cut,
We'll to the woods no more.
Oh we'll no more, no more
To the leafy woods away,
To the high wild woods of laurel
And the bowers of bay no more.

I. THE WEST

Beyond the moor and the mountain crest
--Comrade, look not on the west--
The sun is down and drinks away
From air and land the lees of day.

The long cloud and the single pine
Sentinel the ending line,
And out beyond it, clear and wan,
Reach the gulfs of evening on.

The son of woman turns his brow
West from forty countries now,
And, as the edge of heaven he eyes,
Thinks eternal thoughts, and sighs.

Oh wide's the world, to rest or roam,
With change abroad and cheer at home,
Fights and furloughs, talk and tale,
Company and beef and ale.

But if I front the evening sky
Silent on the west look I,
And my comrade, stride for stride,
Paces silent at my side,

Comrade, look not