As through the wild green hills of Wyre <br />The train ran, changing sky and shire, <br />And far behind, a fading crest, <br />Low in the forsaken west <br />Sank the high-reared head of Clee, <br />My hand lay empty on my knee. <br />Aching on my knee it lay: <br />That morning half a shire away <br />So many an honest fellow's fist <br />Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist. <br />Hand, said I, since now we part <br />From fields and men we know by heart, <br />For strangers' faces, strangers' lands,-- <br />Hand, you have held true fellows' hands. <br />Be clean then; rot before you do <br />A thing they'll not believe of you. <br />You and I must keep from shame <br />In London streets the Shropshire name; <br />On banks of Thames they must not say <br />Severn breeds worse men than they; <br />And friends abroad must bear in mind <br />Friends at home they leave behind. <br />Oh, I shall be stiff and cold <br />When I forget you, hearts of gold; <br />The land where I shall mind you not <br />Is the land where all's forgot. <br />And if my foot returns no more <br />To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore, <br />Luck, my lads, be with you still <br />By falling stream and standing hill, <br />By chiming tower and whispering tree, <br />Men that made a man of me. <br />About your work in town and farm <br />Still you'll keep my head from harm, <br />Still you'll help me, hands that gave <br />A grasp to friend me to the grave.<br /><br />Alfred Edward Housman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-through-the-wild-green-hills-of-wyre/
