LI. Loitering with a vacant eye. Housman, A. E. 1896. A Shropshire Lad

A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.

LI. Loitering with a vacant eye


LOITERING with a vacant eye
Along the Grecian gallery,
And brooding on my heavy ill,
I met a statue standing still.
Still in marble stone stood he,	5
And stedfastly he looked at me.
‘Well met,’ I thought the look would say,
‘We both were fashioned far away;
We neither knew, when we were young,
These Londoners we live among.’	10

Still he stood and eyed me hard,
An earnest and a grave regard:
‘What, lad, drooping with your lot?
I too would be where I am not.
I too survey that endless line	15
Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.
Years, ere you stood up from rest,
On my neck the collar prest;
Years, when you lay down your ill,
I shall stand and bear it still.	20
Courage, lad, ’tis not for long:
Stand, quit you like stone, be strong.’
So I thought his look would say;
And light on me my trouble lay,
And I slept out in flesh and bone	25
Manful like the man of stone.