A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896.
XLIII. When I meet the morning beam
The Immortal PartW
Or lay me down at night to dream,
I hear my bones within me say,
‘Another night, another day.
This dust of thoughts be laid at last,
The man of flesh and soul be slain
And the man of bone remain?
These thews that hustle us about,
This brain that fills the skull with schemes,
And its humming hive of dreams,—
And lord it in their little hour:
The immortal bones obey control
Of dying flesh and dying soul.
Slow the endless night comes on,
And late to fulness grows the birth
That shall last as long as earth.
Know you why you cannot rest?
’Tis that every mother’s son
Travails with a skeleton.
Bear the fruit that bear you must;
Bring the eternal seed to light,
And morn is all the same as night.
Fear the heat o’ the sun no more,
Nor the snowing winter wild,
Now you labour not with child.
We that wore you long shall last.
—Another night, another day.’
So my bones within me say.
To-day while I am master still,
And flesh and soul, now both are strong,
Shall hale the sullen slaves along,
This smoke of thought blow clean away,
And leave with ancient night alone
The stedfast and enduring bone.