Loitering with a vacant eye <br />Along the Grecian gallery, <br />And brooding on my heavy ill, <br />I met a statue standing still. <br />Still in marble stone stood he, <br />And stedfastly he looked at me. <br />"Well met," I thought the look would say, <br />"We both were fashioned far away; <br />We neither knew, when we were young, <br />These Londoners we live among." <br /> <br />Still he stood and eyed me hard, <br />An earnest and a grave regard: <br />"What, lad, drooping with your lot? <br />I too would be where I am not. <br />I too survey that endless line <br />Of men whose thoughts are not as mine. <br />Years, ere you stood up from rest, <br />On my neck the collar prest; <br />Years, when you lay down your ill, <br />I shall stand and bear it still. <br />Courage, lad, 'tis not for long: <br />Stand, quit you like stone, be strong." <br />So I thought his look would say; <br />And light on me my trouble lay, <br />And I stept out in flesh and bone <br />Manful like the man of stone.<br /><br />Alfred Edward Housman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/loitering-with-a-vacant-eye/
