HENRY CHARLES BEECHING
Speed slackens now, I float Awhile in my airy boat; Till, when the wheels scarce crawl, My feet to the treadles fall.
Alas, that the longest hill Must end in a vale; but still, Who climbs with toil, wheresoe'er, Shall find wings waiting there.
��ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN
- 77 E'pita'ph on an Army of Mercenaries
^HESE, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Follow'd their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay; What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
��878 Wenlock Edge
Wenlock Edge the wood \ in trouble; His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves; The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
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