She looked a little wistfully, 'Then went her sunshine way:The sea's eye had a mist on it, And the leaves fell from the day. She went her unremembering way, She left me marvelling why my soul Still, still I seemed to see her, still Nothing begins, and nothing ends, For we are born in other's pain, TO A SNOWFLAKE What heart could have thought you? Past our devisal (O filigree petal!) Fashioned so purely, From what Paradisal Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, wrought you, A. E. Housman was born March 26, 1859, and, after a classical education, he was, for ten years, a Higher Division Clerk in H. M. Patent Office. Later in life, he became a teacher. Housman has published only one volume of original verse, but that volume, A Shropshire Lad (1896), is known wherever modern English poetry is read. Underneath his ironies, there is a rustic humor that has many subtle variations. From a melodic standpoint, A Shropshire Lad is a collection of exquisite, haunting and almost perfect songs. Housman has been a professor of Latin since 1892 and, besides his immortal set of lyrics, has edited Juvenal and the books of Manilius. REVEILLÉ Wake: the silver dusk returning Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters, Lived to feast his heart with all. Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber Clay lies still, but blood's a rover; WHEN I WAS ONE-AND-TWENTY When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, When I was one-and-twenty “The heart out of the bosom And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true. TO AN ATHLETE DYING YOUNG The time you won your town the race And home we brought you shoulder-high. Today, the road all runners come, Smart lad, to slip betimes away Eyes the shady night has shut And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears: Now you will not swell the rout Runners whom renown outran And the name died before the man. So set, before its echoes fade, And round that early-laurelled head Katharine Tynan Hinkson Katharine Tynan was born at Dublin in 1861, and educated at the Convent of St. Catherine at Drogheda. She married Henry Hinkson, a lawyer and author, in 1893. Her poetry is largely actuated by religious themes, and much of her verse is devotional and yet distinctive. In New Poems (1911) she is at her best; graceful, meditative and with occasional notes of deep pathos. SHEEP AND LAMBS All in the April morning, The sheep with their little lambs All in an April evening I thought on the Lamb of God. The lambs were weary, and crying I thought on the Lamb of God Going meekly to die. |