BLUE REMEMBERED HILLS

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

The above poem, often called The Land Of Lost Content, was written by A E HOUSMAN, an English classical scholar and one of the great Victorian lyric poets. The poems wistfully evoke the dooms and disappointments of youth in the English countryside with their beauty, simplicity and distinctive imagery. His best known collection is called A SHROPSHIRE LAD, a cycle of 63 poems, which was published at his own expense in 1896. It rapidly became a lasting success and has been continuously in print ever since.

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
And beacons burn again.

Look left, look right, the hills are bright,
The dales are light between,
Because ’tis fifty years to-night
That God has saved the Queen.

Now, when the flame they watch not towers
About the soil they trod,
Lads, we’ll remember friends of ours
Who shared the work with God.
(first 3 verses from his poem 1887)