From Clee to heaven the beacon burns, The shires have seen it plain, From north and south the sign returns And beacons burn again. Look left, look right, the hills are bright, The dales are light between, Because 'tis fifty years to-night That God has saved the Queen. It dawns in Asia, tombstones show And Shropshire names are read; And the Nile spills his overflow Beside the Severn's dead. "God save the Queen" we living sing, From height to height 'tis heard; And with the rest your voices ring, Lads of the Fifty-third. Oh, God will save her, fear you not: Be you the men you've been, Get you the sons your fathers got, And God will save the Queen.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.

Wake: the silver dusk returning Up the beach of darkness brims, And the ship of sunrise burning Strands upon the eastern rims. Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters, Trampled to the floor it spanned, And the tent of night in tatters Straws the sky-pavilioned land. Get up, 'tis late for lying: Hear the drums of morning play; Hark, the empty highways crying "Who'll beyond the hills away?" Towns and countries woo together, Forelands beacon, belfries call; Never lad that trod on leather Lived to feast his heart with all. Get up, get up, lad Get up: thews that lie and cumber Sunlit pallets never thrive; Morns abed and daylight slumber Were not meant for man alive. Clay lies still, but blood's a rover; Breath's a ware that will not keep. Get up, lad: When the journey's over There'll be time enough to sleep.

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, 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 tonight, 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.

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, “Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.” But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, “The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; ’Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue.” Now I am two-and-twenty, And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

It nods and curtseys and recovers When the wind blows above, The nettle on the graves of lovers That hanged themselves for love. The nettle nods, the winds blows over, The man, he does not move, The lover of the grave, the lover That hanged himself for love.

Oh fair enough are sky and plain, But I know fairer far: Those are as beautiful again That in the water are; The pools and rivers wash so clean, The trees and clouds and air, The like on earth was never seen, And oh that I were there. These are the thoughts I often think As I stand gazing down In act upon the cressy brink To strip and dive and drown; But in the golden-sanded brooks And azure meres I spy A silly lad that longs and looks And wishes he were I.

If truth in hearts that perish Could move the powers on high, I think the love I bear you Should make you not to die. Oh sure, if steadfast meaning, If single thought could save, The world might end tomorrow, You should not see the grave. This long and sure-set liking, This boundless will to please, Oh, you should live for ever If there were help in these. But now, since all is idle, To this lost heart be kind, Ere to a town you journey Where friends are ill to find.

When I meet the morning beam, Or lay me down at night to dream, I hear my bones within me say, ‘Another night, another day. ‘When shall this slough of sense be cast, This dust of thoughts be laid at last, The man of flesh and soul be slain And the man of bone remain? ‘This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout, These thews that hustle us about, This brain that fills the skull with schemes, And its humming hive of dreams,— ‘These today are proud in power And lord it in their little hour: The immortal bones obey control Of dying flesh and dying soul. ‘’Tis long till eve and morn are gone: Slow the endless night comes on, And late to fulness grows the birth That shall last as long as earth. ‘Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest? ’Tis that every mother’s son Travails with a skeleton. ‘Lie down in the bed of dust; Bear the fruit that bear you must; Bring the eternal seed to light, And morn is all the same as night. ‘Rest you so from trouble sore, Fear the heat o’ the sun no more, Nor the snowing winter wild, Now you labour not with child. ‘Empty vessel, garment cast, We that wore you long shall last. —Another night, another day.’ So my bones within me say. Therefore they shall do my will Today while I am master still, And flesh and soul, now both are strong, Shall hale the sullen slaves along, Before this fire of sense decay, This smoke of thought blow clean away, And leave with ancient night alone The steadfast and enduring bone.

Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack, And leave your friends and go. Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread, Look not left nor right: In all the endless road you tread There’s nothing but the night.