Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - LI

Loitering with a vacant eye     Along the Grecian gallery,     And brooding on my heavy ill,     I met a statue standing still.     Still in marble stone stood he,     And stedfastly he looked at me.     "Well met," I thought the look would say,     "We both were fashioned far away;     We neither knew, when we were young,     These Londoners we live among."     Still he stood and eyed me hard,     An earnest and a grave regard:     "What, lad, drooping with your lot?     I too would be where I am not.     I too survey that endless line     Of men whose thoughts are not as mine.     Years, ere you stood up from rest,     On my neck the collar prest;     Years, when you lay down your ill,     I shall stand and bear it still.     Courage, lad, 'tis not for long:     Stand, quit you like stone, be strong."     So I thought his look would say;     And light on me my trouble lay,     And I slept out in flesh and bone     Manful like the man of stone.