"To An Athlete Dying Young" by A.E. Housman
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.
Today, 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.
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Today, 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.
First reactions
I first noticed that the death was not explicitly mentioned, rather only hinted at. The second is the strong role glory plays here, above other human characteristics, and perhaps even the suggestion that it is good the athlete died before his glory could diminish. Whether this is fecetious or not is not immediately apparent.
Paraphrase
When you won the race we carried you through the market place on our shoulders, with the boys and men cheering as you came towards home. Today, all the runners are here, and today we bring you shoulder-high to your grave, the town stiller for your death. It was smart to die when you did, slipping away from a place where glory is found early but only temporarily. Closed eyes can't see a record being broken, silence isn't any worse than cheering to ears under the dirt. Now you won't join those whose fame lasted longer than their abilities. So stop your feet on the coffin and hold your winner's cup to the low ceiling. To your early fame they'll gather, and there they'll see that your glory was shorter than a girl's curls.
Paraphrase
When you won the race we carried you through the market place on our shoulders, with the boys and men cheering as you came towards home. Today, all the runners are here, and today we bring you shoulder-high to your grave, the town stiller for your death. It was smart to die when you did, slipping away from a place where glory is found early but only temporarily. Closed eyes can't see a record being broken, silence isn't any worse than cheering to ears under the dirt. Now you won't join those whose fame lasted longer than their abilities. So stop your feet on the coffin and hold your winner's cup to the low ceiling. To your early fame they'll gather, and there they'll see that your glory was shorter than a girl's curls.
SWIFTT
SW – Housman never references death explicitly, instead referring to being carried "shoulder-high" as if by pall-bearers and mentioning that it was a stiller town, among other things. Housman makes frequently reference to fame and its synonyms. Structurally, each stanza follows an a-a-b-b rhyme scheme of roughly equal length.
I – Housman makes reference to laurels and garlands, both symbols of fame and triumph. Another image frequently used is of transience or shortness, such as a withering rose or a girl's short curls. One signficant image relies on the contrast between the first and second stanzas, where in the first the runner is carried on on the shoulders by a cheering crowd, while in the second he is being carried shoulder-high in his coffin by pallbearers in a still town.
F – The figurative language focuses on symbols of fame. The laurel refers to both the leaves and the wreath, using the short life of one to comment on the other. A similar comparison is used with garland wreathes and a girl's curls, comparing the shortness of the two. A third is the language used referring to "outrunning" or "outlasting" fame, in connection with the athlete as a runner.
T – I would say the tone of the poem is irony. Houseman makes it a point to mention that his fame, and his life, where short, short, short. In his fourth stanza, there is the mention that silence is as good as cheers to the dead; in the same sense, glory is as good as mundanity.
T – The poem deals with mortality and the brevity of fame. An athlete, at the height of their fame, dies. If he'd lived longer, certainly he would have run out of fame, and the poet acknowledges as much. However, the overarching theme was that it was cut short.
Conclusions
I can conclude that Housman was probably fecetious in claiming that dying young was a good thing. Housman makes many references to how short life is. Also, while it is if only passing mention, Housman does note that the town is stiller for the athlete's death, showing the effects of death on others. That he was in the peak of his fame is secondary to his dying.
