by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936)
When I would muse in boyhood
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.
About the headline (FAQ)
Text Authorship:
- by Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936), no title, appears in Last Poems, no. 32, first published 1922 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- 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 verified 1 time]
- by Leslie Russell , "When I would muse in boyhood", 1973 [soprano or tenor and piano], from The Ludlow Cycle [text not verified]
- by John Ramsden Williamson (1929 - 2015), "When I would muse in boyhood" [baritone and piano] [text not verified]
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