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by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936)

In boyhood
 (Sung text for setting by J. Ireland)
 Matches original text
Language: English 
When I would muse in boyhood
  The wild green woods among,
And nurse resolves and fancies
  Because the world was young,
It was not foes to conquer,
  Nor sweethearts to be kind,
But it was friends to die for
  That I would seek and find.

I sought them far and found them,
  The sure, the straight, the brave,
The hearts I lost my own to,
  The souls I could not save.
They braced their belts about them,
  They crossed in ships the sea,
They sought and found six feet of ground,
  And there they died for me.

Composition:

    Set to music by John (Nicholson) Ireland (1879 - 1962), "In boyhood", 1927, published 1928 [ voice and piano ], from We'll to the woods no more, no. 2

Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in Last Poems, no. 32, first published 1922

See other settings of this text.


Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 16
Word count: 97

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