| A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad. 1896. |
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| XII. When I watch the living meet |
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| WHEN I watch the living meet, | |
| And the moving pageant file | |
| Warm and breathing through the street | |
| Where I lodge a little while, | |
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| If the heats of hate and lust | 5 |
| In the house of flesh are strong, | |
| Let me mind the house of dust | |
| Where my sojourn shall be long. | |
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| In the nation that is not | |
| Nothing stands that stood before; | 10 |
| There revenges are forgot, | |
| And the hater hates no more; | |
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| Lovers lying two and two | |
| Ask not whom they sleep beside, | |
| And the bridegroom all night through | 15 |
| Never turns him to the bride. | |
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