On forelands high in heaven,
’Tis many a year gone by,
Amidst the fall of even
Would stand my friends and I.
Before our foolish faces
Lay lands we did not see;
Our eyes were in the places
Where we should never be.
„Oh, the pearl seas are yonder,
The gold and amber shore;
Shires where the girls are fonder,
Towns where the pots hold more.
And here fret we and moulder
By grange and rick and shed
And every moon are older,
And soon we shall be dead.”
Heigho, ’twas true and pity;
But there we lads must stay.
Troy was a steepled city,
But Troy was far away.
And home we turned lamenting
To plains we longed to leave,
And silent hills indenting
The orange band of eve.
I see the air benighted
And all the dusking dales,
And lamps in England lighted,
And evening wrecked on Wales.
And starry darkness paces
The road from sea to sea,
And blots the foolish faces
Of my poor friends and me.