That is the land of lost content

I have been struck by the following poem form Housman’s A Shropshire Lad and inspired to express some thoughts.


XL
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.
(A.E. Housman)


I love this poem. There is a nostalgia and melancholy in the style that reminds us of a simpler time in life. It is a nostalgia borne from the English countryside along with the dark, brooding weather. Set in Shropshire (the land of lost content), A Shropshire Lad is a set of sixty- three poems of which the one above is number 40. The overall theme is of the inevitability of death (especially of young soldiers) and of religion’s inability to console. Better then, to live life to the full, for we never know when we may die.

Written in 1896, the poems start by charting the Shropshire lads who had died in the service of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee (1887) but it wasn’t until the Second Boer War (1899–1902), or World War I (1914-1918) that the poems become particularly popular. A whole host of British composers were inspired to set the them to music: Arthur Somervell, George Butterworth and Ralph Vaughan Williams, Ivor Gurney, John Ireland and Ernest John Moeran.

There is a simple song-like quality to the words that lends them easily to music. At first glance, the poem is quite simple, “plain” even, but there is a deeper level which helps to draw us in:

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows.

The air that blows is the wind blowing like a song, an air, sighing, blowing, touching the heart.

What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

The Blue melancholy hills- the depiction of emotion with nature is juxtaposed with the spiritual realm of the church spire and the farm as a symbol of toiling with the land.

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,

Such a strange land of no content, we are led to a shining plain- the plain of simplicity and the plain plateau. Perhaps this is the line which struck me the most. As usual, seeking to determine my place and the land I live on, the changing tide of landscape renders everywhere strange and of no content.

The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

The happy highways which once celebrated the passage between locations, perhaps to visit loved ones who will never be seen again.

I too have travelled happy highways where I went and cannot come again. Sometimes I can hardly bear that thought and wonder if all my happiness is behind me.

Here is Housman reading three other poems from A Shropshire Lad including the most famous: On Wenlock Edge.

Listen to him read and follow along below!



IV - REVEILLE

Wake: the silver dusk returning
Up the beach of darkness brims,
And the ship of sunrise burning
Strands upon the eastern rims.

Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,
Trampled to the floor it spanned,
And the tent of night in tatters
Straws the sky-pavilioned land.

Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:
Hear the drums of morning play;
Hark, the empty highways crying
`Who'll beyond the hills away?'

Towns and countries woo together,
Forelands beacon, belfries call;
Never lad that trod on leather
Lived to feast his heart with all.

Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.

XXXI

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
When Uricon the city stood:
'Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.

Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,
It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.



XXXII

From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.

Now -- for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart --
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.

Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.


Or if you like, you can listen to the follow recording and read the previous 2 poems!

English tenor Gervase Elwes (1866-1921) / On Wenlock Edge (Vaughan Williams; A. E. Housman) / with the London String Quartet ~ Frederick B. Kiddle - piano / (a) On Wenlock Edge; (b) From far, from eve and morning, (c) Is my team plowing? / Recorded: 1917 --