The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears: 

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

XX

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.

XXI

Bredon hill [1]

In summertime on Bredon
 The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
 In steeples far and near,
 A happy noise to hear.

Here of a Sunday morning
 My love and I would lie
And see the coloured counties,
 And hear the larks so high
 About us in the sky.

The bells would ring to call her
 In valleys miles away: 
“Come all to church, good people;
 Good people, come and pray.” 
 But here my love would stay.

And I would turn and answer
 Among the springing thyme,
“Oh, peal upon our wedding,
 And we will hear the chime,
 And come to church in time.”

But when the snows at Christmas
 On Bredon top were strown,
My love rose up so early
 And stole out unbeknown
 And went to church alone.

They tolled the one bell only,
 Groom there was none to see,
The mourners followed after,
 And so to church went she,
 And would not wait for me.

The bells they sound on Bredon,
 And still the steeples hum. 
“Come all to church, good people,"-
 Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;
 I hear you, I will come.