| A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896. |
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| XXXV. On the idle hill of summer |
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| ON the idle hill of summer, | |
| Sleepy with the flow of streams, | |
| Far I hear the steady drummer | |
| Drumming like a noise in dreams. | |
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| Far and near and low and louder | 5 |
| On the roads of earth go by, | |
| Dear to friends and food for powder, | |
| Soldiers marching, all to die. | |
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| East and west on fields forgotten | |
| Bleach the bones of comrades slain, | 10 |
| Lovely lads and dead and rotten; | |
| None that go return again. | |
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| Far the calling bugles hollo, | |
| High the screaming fife replies, | |
| Gay the files of scarlet follow: | 15 |
| Woman bore me, I will rise. | |
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