“VIII'Farewell to barn and stack and tree,Farewell to Severn shore.Terence, look your last at me,For I come home no more.'The sun burns on the half-mown hill,By now the blood is dried;And Maurice amongst the hay lies stillAnd my knife is in his side.'My mother thinks us long away;'Tis time the field were mown.She had two sons at rising day,To-night she'll be alone.'And here's a bloody hand to shake,And oh, man, here's good-bye;We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,My blood hands and I.'I wish you strength to bring you pride,And a love to keep you clean,And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,At racing on the green.'Long for me the rick will wait,And long will wait the fold,And long will stand the empty plate,And dinner will be cold.'IXOn moonlit heath and lonesome bankThe sheep beside me graze;And yon the gallows used to clankFast by the four cross ways.A careless shepherd once would keepThe flocks by moonlight there,And high amongst the glimmering sheepThe dead man stood on air.They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:The whistles blow forlorn.And trains all night groan on the railTo men that die at morn.There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,Or wakes, as may betide,A better lad, if things went right,Than most that sleep outside.And naked to the hangman's nooseThe morning clocks will ringA neck God made for other useThan strangling in a string.And sharp the link of life will snap,And dead on air will standHeels that held up as straight a chapAs treads upon the land.So here I'll watch the night and waitTo see the morning shine,When he will hear the stroke of eightAnd not the stroke of nine;And wish my friend as sound a sleepAs lads' I did not know,That shepherded the moonlit sheepA hundred years ago.”

A.E. Housman

A.E. Housman - “VIII'Farewell to barn and stack and...” 1

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