A Shropshire Lad IX - "On Moonlit Heath" - by A.E. Housman, read by Stephen J.N. Bauhart

Poetry reading - poem:  Execution, moonlight, eerie, haunting, gallows.
#StevesGravePitPoetry #SGPP


       A Shropshire Lad   IX - by A.E. Housman

         On moonlit heath and lonesome bank
          The sheep beside me graze;
         And yon the gallows used to clank
          Fast by the four cross ways.

         A careless shepherd once would keep
          The flocks by moonlight there, (1)
         And high amongst the glimmering sheep
          The dead man stood on air.

         They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:
          The whistles blow forlorn,
         And trains all night groan on the rail
          To men that die at morn.

         There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,
          Or wakes, as may betide,
         A better lad, if things went right,
          Than most that sleep outside.

         And naked to the hangman's noose
          The morning clocks will ring
         A neck God made for other use
          Than strangling in a string.

         And sharp the link of life will snap,
          And dead on air will stand
         Heels that held up as straight a chap
          As treads upon the land.

         So here I'll watch the night and wait
          To see the morning shine,
         When he will hear the stroke of eight
          And not the stroke of nine;

         And wish my friend as sound a sleep
          As lads' I did not know,
         That shepherded the moonlit sheep
          A hundred years ago.

         (1) Hanging in chains was called keeping sheep by moonlight.


- Written by A.E. Housman, read by Stephen Bauhart
- Music from Pixabay, by Music for Videos (Oleg Kirilkov), "Remember Me"