Poem by Alfred Edward Housman

A Shropshire Lad. 14. There Pass the Careless People

There pass the careless people
  That call their souls their own;
Here by the road I loiter,
  How idle and alone.
 
Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
  In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
  World without end, are drowned.
 
His folly has not fellow
  Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
  His heart and soul away.
 
There flowers no balm to sain him
  From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
  The heart out of his breast.
 
Here by the labouring highway
  With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,
  Lie lost my heart and soul.

1. More Poems. 29. From the Wash the Laundress Sends
2. More Poems. 28. He, Standing Hushed, a Pace or Two Apart
3. More Poems. 37. I Did Not Lose My Heart in Summer’s Even
4. Last Poems. 33. When the Eye of Day Is Shut
5. A Shropshire Lad. 41. In My Own Shire, if I Was Sad

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