Revolution

by Alfred Edward Housman

Revolution

West and away the wheels of darkness roll,

Day's beamy banner up the east is borne,

Spectres and fears, the nightmare and her foal,

Drown in the golden deluge of the morn.

But over sea and continent from sight

Safe to the Indies has the earth conveyed

The vast and moon-eclipsing cone of night,

Her towering foolscap of eternal shade.

See, in mid heaven the sun is mounted; hark,

The belfries tingle to the noonday chime.

'Tis silent, and the subterranean dark

Has crossed the nadir, and begins to climb. 

Xii: An Epitaph 

Stay, if you list, O passer by the way;

Yet night approaches; better not to stay.

I never sigh, nor flush, nor knit the brow,

Nor grieve to think how ill God made me, now.

Here, with one balm for many fevers found,

Whole of an ancient evil, I sleep sound. 

The Nonsense Verse 

At the door of my own little hovel,

Reading a novel I sat;

And as I was reading the novel

A gnat flew away with my hat.

As fast as a fraudulent banker

Away with my hat it fled,

And calmly came to an anchor

In the midst of the cucumber-bed.

I went and purchased a yacht

And traversed the garden-tank,

And I gave it that insect hot

When I got to the other bank;

Of its life I made an abridgment

By squeezing it somewhat flat,

But I still cannot think what that midge meant

By running away with my hat.