Alfred Edward Housman

Additional Poems. 11. Morning up the Eastern Stair

Morning up the eastern stair
Marches, azuring the air,
And the foot of twilight still
Is stolen toward the western sill.
Blithe the maids go milking, blithe
Men in hayfields stone the scythe,
All the land’s alive around
Except the churchyard’s idle ground.
— There’s empty acres west and east
But aye ’tis God’s that bears the least:
This hopeless garden that they sow
With the seeds that never grow.