Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A.E. HOUSMAN AND A FEW FRIENDS by HUMBERT WOLFE

First Line: WHEN LADS HAVE DONE WITH LABOUR
Last Line: EVEN FOR HOUSMAN'S VERSE.'
Subject(s): CAPITAL PUNISHMENT; CRIME & CRIMINALS; HANGING; EXECUTIONS; DEATH PENALTY;
When lads have done with labour
in Shropshire, one will cry,
'Let's go and kill a neighbour,'
And t'other answers 'Aye!'

So this one kills his cousins,
and that one kills his dad;
and, as they hang by dozens
at Ludlow, lad by lad,

each of them one-and-twenty,
all of them murderers,
the hangman mutters: 'Plenty
even for Housman's verse.'



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