A Shropshire Lad 30: Others, I am not the first.

A.E.Houseman 1859 ( Bromsgrove) – 1936 (Cambridge)



Others, I am not the first,
Have willed more mischief than they durst:
If in the breathless night I too
Shiver now, 'tis nothing new.

More than I, if truth were told,
Have stood and sweated hot and cold,
And through their reins in ice and fire
Fear contended with desire.

Agued once like me were they,
But I like them shall win my way
Lastly to the bed of mould
Where there's neither heat nor cold.

But from my grave across my brow
Plays no wind of healing now,
And fire and ice within me fight
Beneath the suffocating night.
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Submitted on September 02, 2020

Modified on April 19, 2023

30 sec read
50

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABB CCDD EECC FFGG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 525
Words 101
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4

A.E.Houseman

Alfred Edward Housman, usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems wistfully evoke the dooms and disappointments of youth in the English countryside.  more…

All A.E.Houseman poems | A.E.Houseman Books

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