A Shropshire Lad/Loitering with a vacant eye

by Alfred Edward Housman

LI

Loitering with a vacant eyeAlong the Grecian gallery,And brooding on my heavy ill,I met a statue standing still.Still in marble stone stood he,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.'

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.Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.Years, cre 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.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 stept out in flesh and boneManful like the man of stone.

 

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