‘A SHROPSHIRE LAD’…
…is the first book of poetry I owned –
a breast pocket sized hardback, slightly foxing.
It was my father’s: his name neatly
in capitals on the inside cover
in indelible pencil – a Londoner,
the son of an economic migrant
and a refugee. When I was ten
my mother gave it me. I liked the first line
‘From Clee to heaven the beacon burns’,
imagining it set to music.
Following his death on active service, the book
was sent back with all his other things.
I never knew him. He never saw me.
He died, an ocean away, three months
after my birth. He could be my grandson now.
He touched this book. I touch it, sniff it.
Old paper smells almost aromatic
like incense, always comforting, always
intriguing. Into my forties, I
thought of him every single day.
The book falls open automatically
at poems 35 and 36:
…On the idle hill of summer,
Sleepy with the flow of streams,
Far I hear the steady drummer
Drumming like a noise in dreams…
…White in the moon the long road lies,
The moon stands blank above;
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love…
but this is the one I return to always:
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 three score 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.
Note: the poem was first published on the site in November 2017.
Ashen Venema
May 31, 2024I must have the same copy you have – a reprint from 1942 Lovely little book, ‘A Shropshire Lad’ by A.E Housman, bound in red leather. In front it has this inscription to ‘Kenneth from Joan … page 18’, which
must have been a personal hint:
In farm and field through all the shire
The eye beholds the heart’s desire;
Ah, let not only mine be vain
For lovers should be loved again
Kate Harrison
May 31, 2024A friend of mine has devoted much time to her family tree. She acquired a bin bag full of ‘stuff’, among which was a small bible with the name Arthur H. Dean inside, a great-uncle. Through a series of coincidences involving a letter, a war memorial and a vicar, she was put in touch with Arthur’s son, then aged 93. Arthur had died in France when his son was 6, in November 1918, four days after the Armistice.
We visited the son. who showed us photos and told tales of my friend’s great grandmother b 1853. It was the family custom to gather at her house around the piano on a Sunday night for a sing song. We had the receipt for that piano in the bag of stuff!
My friend gave Arthur’s bible to his son. After 87 years it was back where it should be. They kept in touch over the next few years, until his death. His daughter told us how much he had cherished that visit.
Robert Davey
June 12, 2024A lovely reflection of your father through Housman’s book. And the poignancy of the cherry blossom poem, the favourite of a man whose life was cut so short.