The mystery of flowers, Nature and mythology run throughout, a sense of thwarted love, held at arms length that nonetheless stays strong. Some have allusions to or are directed by Classical themes. Connections with nature, images and scenery that merit the attention they have received from composers for music and song. Acceptance of a state that cannot be changed but despite that statement, of the expectation of love enduring, whatever the circumstance, of one for another. His was an atheist’s approach to death and disintegration of the body. Interestingly the state of reunion is not as a form of merging but often in the form of companionship, being side-by- side.

The poems vary in some ways but mostly relate to separation, loss, death and a form of reunion. His classical knowledge and expertise comes to the fore in the poetry and the shades are there for us to follow. He has been variously reviewed as writing with clarity, simplicity and brevity through which shines a surprising depth of emotion. Housman was himself surprised by this success and we see the perchance of a publication being noticed and chiming with the sentiment of the times. Housman, a classical scholar, specifically in correction and interpretation of classical text had two other collections published (posthumously) though this volume is the one mostly remembered and regarded.

However, the content touched the heart-strings of families in England as the Boer Wars proceeded and again, strongly, with the duration of the First World War and the years of aftermath. Self-published in 1896 and apparently a slow-seller. The title comes from a poem within the book.

I thought he was from Shropshire, in my ignorance, but no, he was born on the outskirts of Bromsgrove, Worcestershire but lived for some time in sight of Wenlock Hills.

A shropshire lad poem