National Poetry Month, Bombings at the Boston Marathon
…seems like a poem appropriate for this sober morning is A.E. Housman’s “To An Athlete Dying Young.” From Bartleby.com,
Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern British Poetry. 1920. |
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A. E. Housman. 1859– |
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32. To An Athlete Dying Young |
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THE time you won your town the race |
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We chaired you through the market-place; |
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Man and boy stood cheering by, |
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And home we brought you shoulder-high. |
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To-day, the road all runners come, |
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Shoulder-high we bring you home, |
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And set you at your threshold down, |
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Townsman of a stiller town. |
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Smart lad, to slip betimes away |
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From fields where glory does not stay, |
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And early though the laurel grows |
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It withers quicker than the rose. |
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Eyes the shady night has shut |
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Cannot see the record cut, |
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And silence sounds no worse than cheers |
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After earth has stopped the ears: |
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Now you will not swell the rout |
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Of lads that wore their honours out, |
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Runners whom renown outran |
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And the name died before the man. |
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So set, before its echoes fade, |
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The fleet foot on the sill of shade, |
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And hold to the low lintel up |
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The still-defended challenge-cup. |
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And round that early-laurelled head |
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Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, |
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And find unwithered on its curls |
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The garland briefer than a girl’s. |
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