When I Was One-and-Twenty

Jean Deville

Self Portrait

When I Was One-and-Twenty

When I was one-and-twentyI heard a wise man say,

'Give crowns and pounds and guineas

But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies

But keep your fancy free.

'But I was one-and-twenty,

No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty

I heard him say again,

'The heart out of the bosom

Was never given in vain;

'Tis paid with sighs a plenty

And sold for endless rue.

'And I am two-and-twenty,

And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

~ A. E. Housman ~

Is My Team Ploughing?

David Burliuk

Peasant Working in a Field

Is My Team Ploughing?

"Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?"

Ay, the horses trample,
The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
The land you used to plough.

"Is football playing
Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
Now I stand up no more?"

Ay, the ball is flying,
The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
Stands up to keep the goal.

"Is my girl happy,
That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
As she lies down at eve?"

Ay, she lies down lightly,
She lies not down to weep,
Your girl is well contented.
Be still, my lad, and sleep.

"Is my friend hearty,
Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
A better bed than mine?"

Yes, lad, I lie easy,
I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man's sweetheart,
Never ask me whose.

~ A. E. Housman ~

The Lads In Their Hundreds

Winslow Homer

Prisoners From The Front

The Lads In Their Hundreds

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,

There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,

The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,

And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There’s chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,

And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,

And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,

And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell

The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;

And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell

And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there’s nothing to scan;

And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told

They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,

The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

~ A. E. Housman ~

The Laws of God, The Laws of Man

Hieronymous Bosch

Garden of Earthly Delights

The Laws of God, The Laws of Man

The laws of God, the laws of man

He may keep that will and can;

Not I: let God and man decree

Laws for themselves and not for me;

And if my ways are not as theirs

Let them mind their own affairs.

Their deeds I judge and much condemn,

Yet when did I make laws for them?

Please yourselves, say I, and they

Need only look the other way.

But no, they will not; they must still

Wrest their neighbor to their will,

And make me dance as they desire

With jail and gallows and hell-fire.

And how am I to face the odds

Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?

I, a stranger and afraid

In a world I never made.

They will be master, right or wrong;

Though both are foolish, both are strong.

And since, my soul, we cannot fly

To Saturn nor to Mercury,

Keep we must, if keep we can,

These foreign laws of God and man.

~ A. E. Housman ~