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　　To An Athlete Dying Young
　　
　　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.