Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A.E. HOUSMAN AND A FEW FRIENDS, by HUMBERT WOLFE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A.E. HOUSMAN AND A FEW FRIENDS, by                     Poet's Biography
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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