Loitering With A Vacant Eye
Alfred Edward Housman
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.
Next 10 Poems
- Alfred Edward Housman : Look Not In My Eyes, For Fear
- Alfred Edward Housman : Loveliest Of Trees, The Cherry Now
- Alfred Edward Housman : March
- Alfred Edward Housman : Now Hollow Fires Burn Out To Black
- Alfred Edward Housman : O Why Do You Walk ( A Parody )
- Alfred Edward Housman : Oh Fair Enough Are Sky And Plain
- Alfred Edward Housman : Oh See How Thick The Goldcup Flowers
- Alfred Edward Housman : Oh Stay At Home, My Lad
- Alfred Edward Housman : Oh Who Is That Young Sinner
- Alfred Edward Housman : Oh, When I Was In Love With You
Previous 10 Poems
- Alfred Edward Housman : It Nods And Curtseys And Recovers
- Alfred Edward Housman : Is My Team Ploughing
- Alfred Edward Housman : Into My Heart An Air That Kills
- Alfred Edward Housman : In Valleys Of Springs And Rivers
- Alfred Edward Housman : In My Own Shire, If I Was Sad
- Alfred Edward Housman : If Truth In Hearts That Perish
- Alfred Edward Housman : If By Chance Your Eye Offend You
- Alfred Edward Housman : I Hoed And Trenched And Weeded
- Alfred Edward Housman : Hughley Steeple
- Alfred Edward Housman : Ho, Everyone That Thirsteth
