Yonder see the morning blink:

The sun is up, and up must I,

To wash and dress and eat and drink

And look at things and talk and think

And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed

And what’s to show for all my pain?

Let me lie abed and rest:

Ten thousand times I’ve done my best

And all’s to do again.

Alfred Edward Housman (1859 – 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet, best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and epigrammatic, the poems evoke the disappointments of youth in the English countryside. Their beauty, simplicity and distinctive imagery continue to have a strong appeal. Housman was one of the foremost classicists of his age and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars who ever lived.

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