| |
| HIGH the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam | |
| Islanded in Severn stream; | |
| The bridges from the steepled crest | |
| Cross the water east and west. | |
| |
| The flag of morn in conqueror’s state | 5 |
| Enters at the English gate: | |
| The vanquished eve, as night prevails, | |
| Bleeds upon the road to Wales. | |
| |
| Ages since the vanquished bled | |
| Round my mother’s marriage-bed; | 10 |
| There the ravens feasted far | |
| About the open house of war: | |
| |
| When Severn down to Buildwas ran | |
| Coloured with the death of man, | |
| Couched upon her brother’s grave | 15 |
| The Saxon got me on the slave. | |
| |
| The sound of fight is silent long | |
| That began the ancient wrong; | |
| Long the voice of tears is still | |
| That wept of old the endless ill. | 20 |
| |
| In my heart it has not died, | |
| The war that sleeps on Severn side; | |
| They cease not fighting, east and west, | |
| On the marches of my breast. | |
| |
| Here the truceless armies yet | 25 |
| Trample, rolled in blood and sweat, | |
| They kill and kill and never die; | |
| And I think that each is I. | |
| |
| None will part us, none undo | |
| The knot that makes one flesh of two, | 30 |
| Sick with hatred, sick with pain, | |
| Strangling—When shall we be slain? | |
| |
| When shall I be dead and rid | |
| Of the wrong my father did? | |
| How long, how long, till spade and hearse | 35 |
| Put to sleep my mother’s curse? | |
| |
