To An Athlete Dying Young (Alfred Edward Housman)
The time you won your town
the race,
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood
cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners
come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold
down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes
away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel
grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has
shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than
cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the
rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown
outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes
fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel
up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that
early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find
unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's
last changes 31.08.2013, Peter Schmieder