Today's poem

The ballad relates to my participation in the workshop of The Hurst, ARVON. During the residency, I walked alone around the field in Shropshire, then found the view was portrayed in the poem (with iambic tetrameter, each quatrain rhymed abab). I suppose, in the verse, strong wind is a clue: the repetition of the line 'The gale, it plies the saplings double' in the first and fifth stanzas. Moreover, there're landscapes concerning the Roman, such as Bath in the UK. I reckon a relationship between the Roman and 'I' in the verse and the strong wind and hilly land could enhance Houseman's imagination. The last two lines lead me to a conclusion that the time pitilessly wipes out various things.

A Shropshire Lad XXXI: On Wenlock Edge
by A. E. Housman

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
     His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
     And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
     When Uricon the city stood:
'Tis the old wind in the old anger,
      But then it threshed another wood.

Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
      At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
      The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,
      Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
      Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,
      It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
      Are ashes under Uricon.

(from Poetry Archive)