10.9.14

In light of the conversation of the other day regarding youth and nostalgia, here is a poem by A. E. Houseman:


To an Athlete Dying Young

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.

Today, 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.

I chose this because its something that I remember from my youth, pouring through Norton's Anthology at home. (Yes, I had a Norton's Anthology, in fact, I had 3!) I think to an extent, for any person, there are things about your past that you'd like to bask in, even if for a short time. My friends who are athletes can sympathize, always agonizing over that goal un-scored or how close one had come to a personal record. It may contain some regret, in addition to reminiscence or nostalgia. I'm glad I'm a better athlete now than when I was a kid, so I can avoid this to some extent. The poem's speaker is concerned that their skill will fade, and how they are perceived by others will sour. Really, at the heart of this is the fear that one won't satisfy the breadth of their potential, even if it's size is overstated by the boundless conception of the young. In the same vein here is Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas:

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,



The night above the dingle starry,



Time let me hail and climb

Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

Trail with daisies and barley

Down the rivers of the windfall light.



And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

In the sun that is young once only,

Time let me play and be

Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,

And the sabbath rang slowly

In the pebbles of the holy streams.



All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

And playing, lovely and watery

And fire green as grass.

And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars

Flying with the ricks, and the horses

Flashing into the dark.



And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all

Shining, it was Adam and maiden,

The sky gathered again

And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

Out of the whinnying green stable

On to the fields of praise.



And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

In the sun born over and over,

I ran my heedless ways,

My wishes raced through the house high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

Before the children green and golden

Follow him out of grace,



Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

In the moon that is always rising,

Nor that riding to sleep

I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.




Aside from it's nice parallel to my topic, this poem is just wonderful. The repetition is catching without being a refrain, and its lyrical without the strict cadence of the Houseman poem. It's tremendously joyous and liquid, perfect for a late summer/early fall day like today. I also appreciate that, while Housman's subject is honored by his peers and countrymen, Thomas' subject is honored by his natural surroundings and livelihood, which has a different longevity to it than human opinions.