| A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896. |
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| XXXVIII. The winds out of the west land blow |
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| THE WINDS out of the west land blow, | |
| My friends have breathed them there; | |
| Warm with the blood of lads I know | |
| Comes east the sighing air. | |
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| It fanned their temples, filled their lungs, | 5 |
| Scattered their forelocks free; | |
| My friends made words of it with tongues | |
| That talk no more to me. | |
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| Their voices, dying as they fly, | |
| Loose on the wind are sown; | 10 |
| The names of men blow soundless by, | |
| My fellows’ and my own. | |
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| Oh lads, at home I heard you plain, | |
| But here your speech is still, | |
| And down the sighing wind in vain | 15 |
| You hollo from the hill. | |
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| The wind and I, we both were there, | |
| But neither long abode; | |
| Now through the friendless world we fare | |
| And sigh upon the road. | 20 |
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