A Shropshire Lad

William Rothenstein, A. E. Housman

Description

First published in 1896, “A Shropshire Lad” contains sixty-three poems which quickly became popular—particularly among young readers—when first published. Alfred Edward Housman (1859–1936), also known as A. E. Housman, was an English poet and classical scholar considered to be one of the greatest scholars to have ever lived. He is most famous for this collection of lyrical poems which evoke the travails and disappointments of English youth in the countryside. A fantastic collection of classic countryside poetry that will appeal to fans and collectors of Housman's wonderful work. Contents include: “From Clee To Heaven The Beacon Burns”, “Loveliest Of Trees, The Cherry Now”, “Leave Your Home Behind, Lad”, “Wake: The Silver Dusk Returning”, “Oh See How Thick The Goldcup Flowers”, “When The Lad For Longing Sighs”, “When Smoke Stood Up From Ludlow”, etc. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition with specially curated introductory material.

Sujets

• Inglaterra
• War poet
• English poetry
• Shropshire
• England

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 26 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528789776
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

A SHROPSHIRE LAD
WITH A CHAPTER FROM Twenty-Four Portraits BY WILLIAM ROTHENSTEIN
By
A. E. HOUSMAN

First published in 1896


This edition published by Read Books Ltd. Copyright © 2019 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be
reproduced or copied in any way without
the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library


Contents
A. E. HOUSMAN
INTRODUCTION
I From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
II Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
III Leave your home behind, lad,
IV Wake: the silver dusk returning
V Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers
VI When the lad for longing sighs,
VII When smoke stood up from Ludlow,
VIII "Farewell to barn and stack and tree,
IX On moonlit heath and lonesome bank
X The sun at noon to higher air,
XI On your midnight pallet lying
XII When I watch the living meet,
XIII When I was one-and-twenty
XIV There pass the careless people
XV Look not in my eyes, for fear
XVI It nods and curtseys and recovers
XVII Twice a week the winter thorough
XVIII Oh, when I was in love with you,
XIX The time you won your town the race
XX Oh fair enough are sky and plain,
XXI In summertime on Bredon
XXII The street sounds to the soldiers' tread,
XXIII The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
XXIV Say, lad, have you things to do?
XXV This time of year a twelvemonth past,
XXVI Along the fields as we came by
XXVII "Is my team ploughing,
XXVIII High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam
XXIX 'Tis spring; come out to ramble
XXX Others, I am not the first,
XXXI On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
XXXII From far, from eve and morning
XXXIII If truth in hearts that perish
XXXIV "Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be?
XXXV On the idle hill of summer,
XXXVI White in the moon the long road lies,
XXXVII As through the wild green hills of Wyre
XXXVIII The winds out of the west land blow,
XXXIX 'Tis time, I think by Wenlock town
XL Into my heart an air that kills
XLI In my own shire, if I was sad
XLII Once in the wind of morning
XLIII When I meet the morning beam,
XLIV Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?
XLV If it chance your eye offend you,
XLVI Bring, in this timeless grave to throw,
XLVII "Here the hangman stops his cart:
XLVIII Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,
XLIX Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly:
L Clunton and Clunbury,
LI Loitering with a vacant eye
LII Far in a western brookland
LIII The lad came to the door at night,
LIV With rue my heart is laden
LV Westward on the high-hilled plains
LVI "Far I hear the bugle blow
LVII You smile upon your friend to-day,
LVIII When I came last to Ludlow
LIX The star-filled seas are smooth to-night
LX Now hollow fires burn out to black,
LXI The vane on Hughley steeple
LXII "Terence, this is stupid stuff:
LXIII I Hoed and trenched and weeded,





A. E. Housm an Portrait by William Rothe nstein, 1920



A. E. HOUSMAN
A CHAPTER FROM Twenty-Four Portraits BY WILLIAM ROTHENSTEIN
A. E. Housman is a poet in the English tradition. Calling his solitary book of lyrics A Shropshire Lad , he takes the reader back to a time when poetry was not merely or mainly metropolitan and each country knew creative pride. He uses the simplest English forms, writing new ballads that wear grimness of old; and he uses the simplest English themes, turning to days when the ploughman naturally loved a scarlet coat and, breaking the laws, was hanged for it without philosophically reviling the laws. His briefest verses have uncommon energy; they are a man's poetry and quicken the hearts of common men. It is poetry which moves in the changeful waters of our time like a swimmer conscious of his strength and careless of all else. The best of the lyrics -few are below the best -have each his athletic power, a masculine curtness and full pride of life.
There is something else, something which only individual genius can impress upon the traditional forms and expand them with a more than mortal beauty. He looks at a man dying young:
And round that early laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strenghless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl's.
And here too he speaks with fresh ease in the classic manner of English lyrical poets:
Bring, in this timeless grave to throw, No cypress, sombre on the snow; Snap not from the bitter yew His leaves that live December through; Break no rosemary, bright with rime And sparkling to the cruel clime
It is at once old and new, familiar and vivid.
That so small a book should present so sharp a figure in an atmosphere so clear, is the last tribute to A. E. Housman. The figure of A Shropshire Lad is one whose chief energy is action rather than thought; one for whom life holds change, passion, glory, shame; one who will easily avoid the gravest failure -failure to live intensely. Looking at the figure, as he emerges from these sixty-three lyrics and stands salient before you, the full proof of A. E. Housman's genius is seen in this, that he has created that figure neither larger nor smaller than life.



INTRODUCTION
The method of the poems in A Shropshire Lad illustrates better than any theory how poetry may assume the attire of reality, and yet in speech of the simplest, become in spirit the sheer quality of loveliness. For, in these unobtrusive pages, there is nothing shunned which makes the spectacle of life parade its dark and painful, its ironic and cynical burdens, as well as those images with happy and exquisite aspects. With a broader and deeper background of experience and environment, which by some divine special privilege belongs to the poetic imagination, it is easier to set apart and contrast these opposing words and sympathies in a poet; but here we find them evoked in a restricted locale- an English county-where the rich, cool tranquil landscape gives a solid texture to the human show. What, I think, impresses one, thrills, like ecstatic, half-smothered strains of music, floating from unperceived instruments, in Mr. Housman's poems, is the encounter his spirit constantly endures with life. It is, this encounter, what you feel in the Greeks, and as in the Greeks, it is a spiritual waging of miraculous forces. There is, too, in Mr.