The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
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Comments
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It is indeed an excellent poem (in my opinion.) A young hero who died young and by his death, he'll remain the hero, untouched by time's slow erosion of his heroics.
Look at all the once famous people who before they actually pass away have been forgotten, or if they are remembered, are seen as an anachronism.
It's a sad, maybe necessary rationalization for one who died young. -
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Brilliant.
I think I can say this is my favorite poem of all time. The depth, the feeling, the wonderous wording all bind together to create an impenetrable masterpiece of emotion as well as substance.
If ever a poem deserved a second, third, or fiftieth look, it is this one. I have analyzed it many times and still find new and amazing wonders about it. It seems complex on first look, but as you read it a second time it seems simple. Then you read it again and find more and more meaning.
The smoothness and placement of words fills you with an immense awe and you are left wholly unsatisfied at its conclusion:
Why?
It's a work of genius!
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