Notebook Fragments

Notebook Fragments written by Alfred Edward Housman

I.

Nor break my hear with hoping any more,
    Tomorrow you shall have the grave to wife:
    Now, in the accepted time, make friends with life.

To have missed no chances when you come to die
    Haste, for the heaven is westered since you came:
    Day falls, night climbs, the hour last lost its name;
    Quick, quick! the lightning's pace were weary, slow,
    And here you loiter spelling gravestones: go.

II.

And idle under sighing oak
    Or near drowsing linden laid
Maiden and youth in whispers spoke,
    In whispers, youth and maid.

III.

Some air that swept the ARabian strand
    When the pearl gulf was calm,
Some wind that waved in morning-land
    The plumage of the palm.

With odours from the vales of balm,
    That far away it fanned,
And whispering of the plumy palm
    It moved in morning-land.

IV.

She would not peace at all; she would not honour
    At all: the Lord hath lifted up therefor
The darkness of his countenance upon her
    And given her war.

V. The Rights of Men

Ho, sons of old oppression
Toiling with hardened hands
Till the night fall:
Good tidings, bond and thrall!
Grudge not the lord of lands
Their bounded brief possession,
You shall have all.

VI.

The fights they waged aforetime
    Their souls in hell rehearse;
They have made an end of wartime
    And now they reap the curse;

VII.

The old deceived diviner
    Awakes in hell to find
The web of doom spun finer
    Than any mortal mind;

VIII.

But over all their number
    The shower of death is shed;
Far folds the stream of slumber
    On many a strengthless head.

IX.

But what you mean to squander
    Twice it was never had:
The gift there's no regaining,
    Why will you lose it, lad?

Where have you [had the] poison
    That your fool's heart is fain
To throw the thing away
    You never [have] again?

What light to light the way
    That talisman bestows
They know not that possess it
    But he that lost it knows.

X.

I have desired to die,

   That so this fire might cease,

When you were lost, and I

   Were perished and at peace.

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XI.

Heard in the hour of pausing voices,
    That brings the turning wheel to stand,
When barges moor and windows fasten
    And lights are faded in the land.

XII.

My heart, my heart is silent;
    The larks sing loud and shrill;
High, high the larks hang singing;
    My heart, my heart is still.

High spring the leaves and grasses;
    Then I was no more proud;
My heart, my heart is silent
    Although the larks sing loud.

XIII.

    Come, soldier, to the fight:
From the world's end the burgle pierces thin,
The horses neigh to smell the light
Ere dawn be up: come, soldier, to the fight
We shall not win.

XV.

They all were scattered, far to seek,
    That now are easy found,
Where stones with turning shadows streak
    Their many-slumbered ground.

XVI.

Under the earth we trample
    The thoughtless dead lie thick;
This outspread surface ample
    Bears, sprinkled thin, the quick.

XVII.

When Adam of the apple ate
He had [no] friend to keep him straight;
God to a wife: 'twas hopeless odds.
Friends are a deal more help than gods.

XVIII.

Ned Lear and I were drunk last week,
Oh, dripping drunk were Ned and I,
Too drunk to see, too drunk to speak,
Too helpless drunk to reason why.
You might have looked through Ludlow fair
And never spied a tipsier pair.

Off to the fair, the morn of May,
Two lovely lads went I and Ned.
Clean shirts, blue neckties, breastknots gay,
New coats on back, new hats on head.
And who this week are wearing those
Two hats, the Lord Almighty knows.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . then began
The quarrel which should go with Fan.

He called me all the names he knew,
And that was more than he could spell;
I gave him stuff to think of too,
The tale about his sister Nell
And Martin Hughes, and what folks thought
And folks expected: then we fought.

XIX.

The signpost on the height
    Strikes with five arms to all the sky:
"Here I go left, and you go right;
    Shake hands, my lad; goodbye; goodbye."