by A.E. Housman
When first my way to fair I took
When first my way to fair I took
__Few pence in purse had I,
And long I used to stand and look
__At things I could not buy.
Now times are altered: if I care
__To buy a thing, I can;
The pence are here and here's the fair,
__But where's the lost young man?
--- To think that two and two are four
__And neither five nor three
The heart of man has long been sore
__And long 'tis like to be.
And long I used to stand and look
__At things I could not buy.
Now times are altered: if I care
__To buy a thing, I can;
The pence are here and here's the fair,
__But where's the lost young man?
--- To think that two and two are four
__And neither five nor three
The heart of man has long been sore
__And long 'tis like to be.
"XXXV" or "When first this way to fair I took" is taken from A.E. Housman's Last Poems, first published in 1922. Housman is best known for his great cycle of poems, The Shropshire Lad (1896). His sparse, simple verse made "XIII" ("When I was one and twenty," a similar poem in many ways to "XXXV" from Last Poems) and war-themed poems hugely popular in the early 1900s. Last Poems is a less structured and consistent collection, put together by Housman as his lifelong love lay dying. It was the last collection he published in his life. Like the poems in Shropshire Lad, those in Last Poems display a deep and honest sentimentality.