ON THE IDLE HILL OF SUMMER
by: A.E. Housman (1860-1936)
- N the idle
hill of summer,
- Sleepy with the flow of streams,
- Far I hear the steady drummer
- Drumming like a noise in dreams.
-
- Far and near and low and louder
- On the roads of earth go by,
- Dear to friends and food for powder,
- Soldiers marching, all to die.
-
- East and west on fields forgotten
- Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
- Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
- None that go return again.
-
- Far the calling bugles hollo,
- High the screaming fife replies,
- Gay the files of scarlet follow:
- Woman bore me, I will rise.
"On the idle hill of summer"
is reprinted from A Shropshire Lad. A.E. Housman. London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1896. |
MORE POEMS BY A.E. HOUSMAN |
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