EPITAPH ON AN ARMY OF MERCENARIES

by A. E. Houseman 1914.

in the square at Mons 22nd August 1914

 

These, in the day when heaven was falling,

The hour when earth's foundations fled,

Followed their mercenary calling

And took their wages and are dead.

 

Their shoulders held the sky. suspended;

They stood, and earth's foundations stay;

What God abandoned, these defended,

And saved the sum of things for pay.

 

An 18lber in action, 1914

THE ORACLES by A. E. Houseman

'Tis mute, the word they went to hear on high Dodona mountain             

When winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled,

And mute's the midland navel-stone beside the singing fountain,

And echoes list to silence now where gods told lies of old.

 

I took my question to the shrine that has not ceased from speaking,

The heart within, that tells the truth and tells it twice as plain;

And from the cave of oracles I heard the priestess shrieking

That she and I should surely die and never live again.

 

Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound good sense I think it;

But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth your mouth no more.

'Tis true there's better booze than brine, but he that drowns must drink it;

And oh, my lass, the news is news that men have heard before.

 

The King with half the East at heel is marched from land of morning;

Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air.

And he that stands will die for nought, and home there's no returning.

The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.

 

The Spartans at Thermopolae

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