Alfred Edward Housman

Additional Poems. 15. ’Tis Five Years Since

’Tis five years since, „An end,” said I,
„I’ll march no further, time to die.
All’s lost; no worse has heaven to give.”
Worse it has given, and yet I live.

I shall not die today, no fear:
I shall live yet for many a year,
And see worse ills and worse again,
And die of age and not of pain.

When God would rear from earth aloof
The blue height of the hollow roof
He sought him pillars sure and strong
And ere he found them sought them long.

The stark steel splintered from the thrust,
The basalt mountain sprang to dust,
The blazing pier of diamond flawed
In shards of rainbow all abroad.

What found he that the heavens stand fast?
What pillar proven firm at last
Bears up so light that world-seen span?
The heart of man, the heart of man.