Poem by Alfred Edward Housman

A Shropshire Lad. 12. When I Watch the Living Meet

When I watch the living meet,
  And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
  Where I lodge a little while,
 
If the heats of hate and lust
  In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
  Where my sojourn shall be long.
 
In the nation that is not
  Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
  And the hater hates no more;
 
Lovers lying two and two
  Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
  Never turns him to the bride.

1. Additional Poems. 11a. They Shall Have Breath that Never Were
2. Last Poems. 21. The Fairies Break Their Dances
3. Last Poems. 19. In Midnights of November
4. More Poems. 29. From the Wash the Laundress Sends
5. Additional Poems. 16. Some Can Gaze and not Be Sick

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