LAST POEMS

By A. E. Housman


I publish these poems, few though they are, because it is not likely
that I shall ever be impelled to write much more. I can no longer
expect to be revisited by the continuous excitement under which in
the early months of 1895 I wrote the greater part of my first book,
nor indeed could I well sustain it if it came; and it is best that what
I have written should be printed while I am here to see it through
the press and control its spelling and punctuation. About a quarter
of this matter belongs to the April of the present year, but most of
it to dates between 1895 and 1910.

September 1922



/We'll to the weeds no more,
The laurels are all cut,
The bowers are bare of bay
That once the Muses wore;
The year draws in the day
And soon will evening shut:
The laurels all are cut,
We'll to the woods no more.
Oh we'll no more, no more
To the leafy woods away,
To the high wild woods of laurel