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 where 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. Housman