109 [More Poems]
A.E. Housman
XXXI
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Because I like you[1] better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you and I promised
I’d throw the thought away.
To put the world between us
We parted stiff and dry:
“Farewell,” said you, “forget me.”
“Fare well, I will,” said I.
If e’er, where clover whitens
The dead man’s knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,
Halt by the headstone shading
The heart you have not stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.
— 1936
- The “you” was Moses Jackson, who died in 1923 in Vancouver, Canada. ↵