Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XIX - To An Athlete Dying Young

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.     To-day, 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.