"To an Athlete Dying Young," by A. E. Housman
Author: A. E. Housman
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.
Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry Third Edition (1983)
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The author must know or be a runner because he talks about running in lines 1,5,12, and 19
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The poem seems to take place in a small town based on how the author describes the setting around this race and the town.
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The author mentions being able to see, hear, and be silent all in the same paragraph for a specific reason
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What could he be implying when he says silence sounds no worse then cheers? why might silence sound worse then cheers?
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In this paragraph it say the name died before the man, which is basically saying that the man’s career died before he did. He is saying that the man literally died but i would disagree
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This man/ runner must have been trying to keep his title as a winner
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He has a pattern of rhythm he rhyming the first two lines, and last to lines of every paragraph
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What does he mean by the line “The garland briefer than a girl’s”?
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