And sure enough beneath the tree
There walks another love with me,
And overhead the aspen heaves
Its rainy-sounding silver leaves;
And I spell nothing in their stir,
But now perhaps they speak to her,
And plain for her to understand
They talk about a time at hand
When I shall sleep with clover clad,
And she beside another lad.

XXVII

“Is my team ploughing,
 That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
 When I was man alive?”

Ay, the horses trample,
 The harness jingles now;
No change though you lie under
 The land you used to plough.

“Is football playing
 Along the river shore,
With lads to chase the leather,
 Now I stand up no more?”

Ay, the ball is flying,
 The lads play heart and soul;
The goal stands up, the keeper
 Stands up to keep the goal.

“Is my girl happy,
 That I thought hard to leave,
And has she tired of weeping
 As she lies down at eve?”

Ay, she lies down lightly,
 She lies not down to weep: 
Your girl is well contented. 
 Be still, my lad, and sleep.

“Is my friend hearty,
 Now I am thin and pine,
And has he found to sleep in
 A better bed than mine?”

Yes, lad, I lie easy,
 I lie as lads would choose;
I cheer a dead man’s sweetheart,
 Never ask me whose.

XXVIII

THE WELSH MARCHES

High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam
Islanded in Severn stream;
The bridges from the steepled crest
Cross the water east and west.

The flag of morn in conqueror’s state
Enters at the English gate: 
The vanquished eve, as night prevails,
Bleeds upon the road to Wales.

Ages since the vanquished bled
Round my mother’s marriage-bed;
There the ravens feasted far
About the open house of war: 

When Severn down to Buildwas ran
Coloured with the death of man,
Couched upon her brother’s grave
The Saxon got me on the slave.

The sound of fight is silent long
That began the ancient wrong;
Long the voice of tears is still
That wept of old the endless ill.

In my heart it has not died,
The war that sleeps on Severn side;
They cease not fighting, east and west,
On the marches of my breast.

Here the truceless armies yet
Trample, rolled in blood and sweat;
They kill and kill and never die;
And I think that each is I.

None will part us, none undo
The knot that makes one flesh of two,
Sick with hatred, sick with pain,
Strangling-When shall we be slain?

When shall I be dead and rid
Of the wrong my father did? 
How long, how long, till spade and hearse
Put to sleep my mother’s curse?

XXIX