Alfred Edward Housman

More Poems. 16. How Clear, How Lovely Bright

How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
        Those beams of morning play,
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
        Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
        Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
        I never kept before.

— Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
        Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound,
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
        Falls the remorseful day.