On the idle hill of summer, <br />Sleepy with the flow of streams, <br />Far I hear the steady drummer <br />Drumming like a noise in dreams. <br /> <br />Far and near and low and louder <br />On the roads of earth go by, <br />Dear to friends and food for powder, <br />Soldiers marching, all to die. <br /> <br />East and west on fields forgotten <br />Bleach the bones of comrades slain, <br />Lovely lads and dead and rotten; <br />None that go return again. <br /> <br />Far the calling bugles hollo, <br />High the screaming fife replies, <br />Gay the files of scarlet follow: <br />Woman bore me, I will rise.<br /><br />Alfred Edward Housman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-idle-hill-of-summer/
