A Shropshire Lad XXXV: On the idle hill of summer
A Shropshire Lad XXXV: On the idle hill of summer
1On the idle hill of summer,
2 Sleepy with the flow of streams,
3Far I hear the steady drummer
4 Drumming like a noise in dreams.
5Far and near and low and louder
6 On the roads of earth go by,
7Dear to friends and food for powder,
8 Soldiers marching, all to die.
9East and west on fields forgotten
10 Bleach the bones of comrades slain,
11Lovely lads and dead and rotten;
12 None that go return again.
13Far the calling bugles hollo,
14 High the screaming fife replies,
15Gay the files of scarlet follow:
16 Woman bore me, I will rise.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire