When I Was One-and-Twenty
A. E. Housman
Track 13 on A Shropshire Lad
When I Was One-and-Twenty Lyrics
XIII
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
About
Genius Annotation
Housman on keeping a stiff upper lip in matters of the heart.
The poem presents a kind of proverbial wisdom without narrating what has actually happened to the speaker. Housman leaves it to us to imagine the sad story, inducing us to agree with the wise man. The tone is more one of experiential regret than philosophical speculation on the possibility of freedom in love.
If we take “guineas” and “rubies” as half-rhymes with “twenty” (marked with an apostrophe as A') we get a loosely ABAB rhyme scheme, with masculine and feminine rhymes alternating.
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 1.1887
- 3.The Recruit
- 4.Reveille
- 10.March
- 13.When I Was One-and-Twenty
- 21.Bredon Hill
- 29.The Lent Lily
- 34.The New Mistress
- 42.The Merry Guide
- 53.The True Lover
- 61.Hughley Steeple
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