In valleys green and still Where lovers wander maying They hear from over hill A music playing. Behind the drum and fife, Past hawthornwood and hollow, Through earth and out of life The soldiers follow. The soldier's is the trade: In any wind or weather He steals the heart of maid And man together. The lover and his lass Beneath the hawthorn lying Have heard the soldiers pass, And both are sighing. And down the distance they With dying note and swelling Walk the resounding way To the still dwelling.

VIII

Soldier from the wars returning, Spoiler of the taken town, Here is ease that asks not earning; Turn you in and sit you down. Peace is come and wars are over, Welcome you and welcome all, While the charger crops the clover And his bridle hangs in stall. Now no more of winters biting, Filth in trench from fall to spring, Summers full of sweat and fighting For the Kesar or the King. Rest you, charger, rust you, bridle; Kings and kesars, keep your pay; Soldier, sit you down and idle At the inn of night for aye.

IX

The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away, The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers. Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May. There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot, One season ruined of our little store. May will be fine next year as like as not: Oh ay, but then we shall be twenty-four. We for a certainty are not the first Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed Whatever brute and blackguard made the world. It is in truth iniquity on high To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave, And mar the merriment as you and I Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave. Iniquity it is; but pass the can. My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore; Our only portion is the estate of man: We want the moon, but we shall get no more. If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours To-morrow it will hie on far behests; The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts. The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

X

Could man be drunk for ever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning And lief lie down of nights. But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.

XI

Yonder see the morning blink: The sun is up, and up must I, To wash and dress and eat and drink And look at things and talk and think And work, and God knows why. Oh often have I washed and dressed And what's to show for all my pain? Let me lie abed and rest: Ten thousand times I've done my best And all's to do again.

XII

The laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Now 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 neighbour 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 or Mercury, Keep we must, if keep we can, These foreign laws of God and man.

XIII. THE DESERTER

"What sound awakened me, I wonder, For now 'tis dumb." "Wheels on the road most like, or thunder: Lie down; 'twas not the drum.: "Toil at sea and two in haven And trouble far: Fly, crow, away, and follow, raven, And all that croaks for war." "Hark, I heard the bugle crying, And where am I? My friends are up and dressed and dying, And I will dress and die." "Oh love is rare and trouble plenty And carrion cheap, And daylight dear at four-and-twenty: Lie down again and sleep." "Reach me my belt and leave your prattle: Your hour is gone; But my day is the day of battle, And that comes dawning on. "They mow the field of man in season: Farewell, my fair, And, call it truth or call it treason, Farewell the vows that were." "Ay, false heart, forsake me lightly: 'Tis like the brave. They find no bed to joy in rightly Before they find the grave. "Their love is for their own undoing. And east and west They scour about the world a-wooing The bullet in their breast. "Sail away the ocean over, Oh sail away, And lie there with your leaden lover For ever and a day."

Страница 2 из 6

Назад 1 2 3…6 Далее