Poem by Alfred Edward Housman

A Shropshire Lad. 51. Loitering with a Vacant Eye

   Loitering with a vacant eye
Along the Grecian gallery,
And brooding on my heavy ill,
I met a statue standing still.
Still in marble stone stood he,
And stedfastly he looked at me.
"Well met," I thought the look would say,
"We both were fashioned far away;
We neither knew, when we were young,
These Londoners we live among."

   Still he stood and eyed me hard,
An earnest and a grave regard:
"What, lad, drooping with your lot?
I too would be where I am not.
I too survey that endless line
Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.
Years, ere you stood up from rest,
On my neck the collar prest;
Years, when you lay down your ill,
I shall stand and bear it still.
Courage, lad, 'tis not for long:
Stand, quit you like stone, be strong."
So I thought his look would say;
And light on me my trouble lay,
And I stept out in flesh and bone
Manful like the man of stone. 

1. More Poems. 33. On Forelands High in Heaven
2. A Shropshire Lad. 56. The Day of Battle
3. More Poems. 17. Bells in Tower at Evening Toll
4. Last Poems. 39. When Summer’s End Is Nighing
5. More Poems. 21. The World Goes None the Lamer

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