Four Housman Songs

The star-filled seas are smooth to-night
From France to England strown;
Black towers above the Portland light
The felon-quarried stone.

On yonder island, not to rise,
Never to stir forth free,
Far from his folk a dead lad lies
That once was friends with me.

Lie you easy, dream you light,
And sleep you fast for aye;
And luckier may you find the night
Than ever you found the day.

I wake from dreams and turning
  My vision on the height
I scan the beacons burning
  About the fields of night.

Each in its stedfast station
  Inflaming heaven they flare;
They sign with conflagration
  The empty moors of air.

The signal-fires of warning
  They blaze, but none regard;
And on through night to morning
  The world runs ruinward.

When Adam walked in Eden young
    Happy, 'tis writ, was he,
While high the fruit of knowledge hung
    Unbitten on the tree.

Happy was he the livelong day:
    I doubt 'tis written wrong:
The heart of man, for all they say,
    Was never happy long.

And now my feet are tired of rest
    And here they will not stay
And the soul fevers in my breast
    And aches to be away.

The mill-stream, now that noises cease,
Is all that does not hold its peace;
Under the bridge it murmurs by,
And here are night and hell and I.
 
Who made the world I cannot tell;
'Tis made, and here I am in hell.
My hand, though now my knuckles bleed,
I never soiled with such a deed.
 
And so, no doubt, in time gone by,
Some have suffered more than I,
Who only spend the night alone
And strike my fist upon the stone.