A Shropshire Lad - LIX - The Isle Of Portland

by A. E. Housman

　　

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The Isle of Portland was published in Housman's collection of 63 poems in A Shropshire Lad (1896). Housman self-published the book after being turned down by several publishers. Themes tend to focus on unrequited love, pastoral beauty, fleeting youth, grief, death, and patriotism.     The star-filled seas are smooth to-night    From France to England strown;    Black towers above the Portland light    The felon-quarried stone.    On yonder island, not to rise,    Never to stir forth free,    Far from his folk a dead lad lies    That once was friends with me.    Lie you easy, dream you light,    And sleep you fast for aye;    And luckier may you find the night    Than ever you found the day.

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