I dare say I have scarcely touched upon the secret of Mr. Housman’s book.  For some it may radiate from the Shropshire life he so finely etches; for others, in the vivid artistic simplicity and unity of values, through which Shropshire lads and landscapes are presented.  It must be, however, in the miraculous fusing of the two.  Whatever that secret is, the charm of it never fails after all these years to keep the poems preserved with a freshness and vitality, which are the qualities of enduring genius.

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE

A SHROPSHIRE LAD

I

1887

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
 The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
 And beacons burn again.

Look left, look right, the hills are bright,
 The dales are light between,
Because ’tis fifty years to-night
 That God has saved the Queen.

Now, when the flame they watch not towers
 About the soil they trod,
Lads, we’ll remember friends of ours
 Who shared the work with God.

To skies that knit their heartstrings right,
 To fields that bred them brave,
The saviours come not home to-night: 
 Themselves they could not save.

It dawns in Asia, tombstones show
 And Shropshire names are read;
And the Nile spills his overflow
 Beside the Severn’s dead.

We pledge in peace by farm and town
 The Queen they served in war,
And fire the beacons up and down
 The land they perished for.

“God Save the Queen” we living sing,
 From height to height ’tis heard;
And with the rest your voices ring,
 Lads of the Fifty-third.

Oh, God will save her, fear you not: 
 Be you the men you’ve been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
 And God will Save the Queen.

II

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

III

THE RECRUIT

Leave your home behind, lad,
 And reach your friends your hand,
And go, and luck go with you
 While Ludlow tower shall stand.

Oh, come you home of Sunday
 When Ludlow streets are still
And Ludlow bells are calling
 To farm and lane and mill,

Or come you home of Monday
 When Ludlow market hums
And Ludlow chimes are playing
 “The conquering hero comes,”