Position:Home>Poetry> Please help: has anyone read "To an Athlete Dying Young" by A.E. Housm

It's about how it's better for an athlete to die young, because that way his glory is still with him!. He never lives to see the day when his records are broken, he never becomes an old man who is unable to perform anymore!. He goes out with his town loving and celebrating him, and they all show up to mourn for him at his death!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Here's the poem!. When you say "a brief summary," what exactly are you asking for!? Is there something specific that you don't understand!?

To an Athlete Dying Young

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!.

To-day, 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 were 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!.

A!. E!. HousmanWww@QuestionHome@Com

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