Home ⇒ 📌A E Housman ⇒ Westward on the High-Hilled Plains
Westward on the High-Hilled Plains
Westward on the high-hilled plains
Where for me the world began,
Still, I think, in newer veins
Frets the changeless blood of man.
Now that other lads than I
Strip to bathe on Severn shore,
They, no help, for all they try,
Tread the mill I trod before.
There, when hueless is the west
And the darkness hushes wide,
Where the lad lies down to rest
Stands the troubled dream beside.
There, on thoughts that once were mine,
Day looks down the eastern steep,
And the youth at morning shine
Makes the vow he will not keep.
(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- At Night On The High Seas At night, when the sea cradles me And the pale star gleam Lies down on its broad waves, Then I free myself wholly From all activity and all the love And stand silent and breathe purely, Alone, alone cradled by the sea That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights. Then I have […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 01: 07: Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers The golden lights go out. . . The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn, In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn, We lie face down, we dream, We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem To stare at the ceiling or walls. […]...
- Psalm XXXVI: High in the Heav'ns High in the heav’ns, eternal God, Thy goodness in full glory shines; Thy truth shall break through ev’ry cloud That veils and darkens thy designs. For ever firm thy justice stands, As mountains their foundations keep; Wise are the wonders of thy hands; Thy judgments are a mighty deep. Thy providence is kind and large, […]...
- To The Man Of The High North My rhymes are rough, and often in my rhyming I’ve drifted, silver-sailed, on seas of dream, Hearing afar the bells of Elfland chiming, Seeing the groves of Arcadie agleam. I was the thrall of Beauty that rejoices From peak snow-diademed to regal star; Yet to mine aerie ever pierced the voices, The pregnant voices of […]...
- In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen ELIZABETH Proem. 1.1 Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie, 1.2 Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky 1.3 Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime, 1.4 And so has vow’d, whilst there is world or time. 1.5 So great’s thy glory, and thine excellence, 1.6 The sound thereof raps every human sense […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 01: 04: Up high black walls, up sombre terraces Up high black walls, up sombre terraces, Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs, The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky. From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain, Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye. They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower, Along high terraces quicker […]...
- Stepping Westward What is green in me Darkens, muscadine. If woman is inconstant, Good, I am faithful to Ebb and flow, I fall In season and now Is a time of ripening. If her part Is to be true, A north star, Good, I hold steady In the black sky And vanish by day, Yet burn there […]...
- Forgotten Master As you gaze beyond the bay With such wanness in your eyes, You who have out-stayed your day, Seeing other stars arise, Slender though your lifehold be, Still you dream beside the sea. We, alas! may live too long, Know the best part of us die; Echo of your even-song Hushes down the darkling sky. […]...
- 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 […]...
- The Plains A land, as far as the eye can see, where the waving grasses grow Or the plains are blackened and burnt and bare, where the false mirages go Like shifting symbols of hope deferred – land where you never know. Land of the plenty or land of want, where the grey Companions dance, Feast or […]...
- The Great Western Plains The little voices of the prairie dogs Are tireless. . . They will give three hurrahs Alike to stage, equestrian, and pullman, And all unstingingly as to the moon. And Fifi’s bows and poodle ease Whirl by them centred on the lap Of Lottie Honeydew, movie queen, Toward lawyers and Nevada. And how much more […]...
- Sonnet II: High on a Rock High on a rock, coaeval with the skies, A Temple stands, rear’d by immortal pow’rs To Chastity divine! ambrosial flow’rs Twining round icicles, in columns rise, Mingling with pendent gems of orient dyes! Piercing the air, a golden crescent tow’rs, Veil’d by transparent clouds; while smiling hours Shake from their varying wings celestial joys! The […]...
- Villages and Plains the Streams Flow Through You too return, along with days gone, And flow again, my blue rivers, To carry on the songs of washerwomen, Fishermen’s nets and grey wooden bridges. Clear blue nights, smelling warm, Streams of thin mist off the meadow drift in With distinct hoof-stomps from a fettered horse. To carry off rioting spring thaws, Willows torn […]...
- 315. Song-Out over the Forth OUT over the Forth, I look to the North; But what is the north and its Highlands to me? The south nor the east gie ease to my breast, The far foreign land, or the wide rolling sea. But I look to the west when I gae to rest, That happy my dreams and my […]...
- The Never-Never Country By homestead, hut, and shearing-shed, By railroad, coach, and track By lonely graves of our brave dead, Up-Country and Out-Back: To where ‘neath glorious the clustered stars The dreamy plains expand My home lies wide a thousand miles In the Never-Never Land. It lies beyond the farming belt, Wide wastes of scrub and plain, A […]...
- Time And Life I. Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame Ere the change of things and thoughts requicken, Time, thy name. Girt about with shadow, blind and lame, Ghosts of things that smite and thoughts that sicken Hunt and hound thee down to death and shame. Eyes of […]...
- Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican Isn’t she lovely, “the Mistress”? With her wide-apart grey-green eyes, The droop of her lips and, when she smiles, Her glance of amused surprise? How nonchalantly she wears her clothes, How expensive they are as well! And the sound of her voice is as soft and deep As the Christ Church tenor bell. But why […]...
- Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
- High Talk Processions that lack high stilts have nothing that catches the eye. What if my great-granddad had a pair that were twenty foot high, And mine were but fifteen foot, no modern Stalks upon higher, Some rogue of the world stole them to patch up a fence or a fire. Because piebald ponies, led bears, caged […]...
- High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending High waving heather ‘neath stormy blasts bending, Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars, Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending, Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending, Man’s spirit away from its drear dungeon sending, Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars. All down the mountain sides wild forests lending One mighty voice to the life-giving […]...
- Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
- The Wander-Light And they heard the tent-poles clatter, And the fly in twain was torn – ‘Tis the soiled rag of a tatter Of the tent where I was born. And what matters it, I wonder? Brick or stone or calico? – Or a bush you were born under, When it happened long ago? And my beds […]...
- Forever I With you I shall ever be; Over land and sea My thoughts will companion you; With yours shall my laughter chime, And my step keep time In the dusk and dew With yours in blithesome rhyme; In all of your joy shall I rejoice, On my lips your sorrow shall find a voice, And […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 01: 02: One, from his high bright window in a tower One, from his high bright window in a tower, Leans out, as evening falls, And sees the advancing curtain of the shower Splashing its silver on roofs and walls: Sees how, swift as a shadow, it crosses the city, And murmurs beyond far walls to the sea, Leaving a glimmer of water in the dark […]...
- Men Of The High North Men of the High North, the wild sky is blazing; Islands of opal float on silver seas; Swift splendors kindle, barbaric, amazing; Pale ports of amber, golden argosies. Ringed all around us the proud peaks are glowing; Fierce chiefs in council, their wigwam the sky; Far, far below us the big Yukon flowing, Like threaded […]...
- My Book Before I drink myself to death, God, let me finish up my Book! At night, I fear, I fight for breath, And wake up whiter than a spook; And crawl off to a bistro near, And drink until my brain is clear. Rare Absinthe! Oh, it gives me strength To write and write; and so […]...
- In The Days When The World Was Wide The world is narrow and ways are short, and our lives are dull and slow, For little is new where the crowds resort, and less where the wanderers go; Greater, or smaller, the same old things we see by the dull road-side And tired of all is the spirit that sings Of the days when […]...
- We May Roam Through This World We may roam through this world, like a child at a feast, Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the rest; And, when pleasure begins to grow dull in the east, We may order our wings and be off to the west: But if hearts that feel, and eyes that smile, Are […]...
- The West Wind IT’S a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills. And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils. It’s a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine, […]...
- Mortal Limit I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming. It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags. There west were the Tetons. Snow-peaks would soon be In dark profile to break constellations. Beyond what height Hangs now […]...
- The Token Send me some token, that my hope may live, Or that my easeless thoughts may sleep and rest; Send me some honey to make sweet my hive, That in my passions I may hope the best. I beg no riband wrought with thine own hands, To knit our loves in the fantastic strain Of new-touched […]...
- PUBLISHERS And then they pretend like owls With marble eyes and wizened stupidity I do not know why they cannot perceive True art But I will write Until sand evaporates And the moon consumes the sun I will write Even for the sake of art For myself and for those who feel Reading could lift them […]...
- Sonnet 46: Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right, My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie- A closet never pierced with crystal eyes- But the defendant […]...
- Sonnet XLVI Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war How to divide the conquest of thy sight; Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar, My heart mine eye the freedom of that right. My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie A closet never pierced with crystal eyes But the defendant […]...
- Hymn 68 The banquet of love. SS 2:1-4,6,7. Behold the Rose of Sharon here, The Lily which the valleys bear; Behold the Tree of Life, that gives Refreshing fruit and healing leaves. Amongst the thorns so lilies shine; Amongst wild gourds the noble vine; So in mine eyes my Savior proves, Amidst a thousand meaner loves. Beneath […]...
- Psalm 13 Pleading with God under desertion. How long, O Lord, shall I complain, Like one that seeks his God in vain? Canst thou thy face for ever hide, And I still pray, and be denied? Shall I for ever be forgot, As one whom thou regardest not Still shall my soul thine absence mourn, And still […]...
- Fleeing Away My thoughts soar not as they ought to soar, Higher and higher on soul-lent wings; But ever and often and more and more They are dragged down earthward by little things, By little troubles and little needs, As a lark might be tangled among the weeds. My purpose is not what it ought to be, […]...
- Mine and Thine Two words about the world we see, And nought but Mine and Thine they be. Ah! might we drive them forth and wide With us should rest and peace abide; All free, nought owned of goods and gear, By men and women though it were Common to all all wheat and wine Over the seas […]...
- Rose Leaves When they shall close my careless eyes And look their last upon my face, I fear that some will say: “her lies A man of deep disgrace; His thoughts were bare, his words were brittle, He dreamed so much, he did so little. When they shall seal y coffin lid And this worn mask I […]...
- Spring comes on the World Spring comes on the World I sight the Aprils Hueless to me until thou come As, till the Bee Blossoms stand negative, Touched to Conditions By a Hum....