"To an Athlete Dying Young" is an elegiac poem by the British Victorian poet A.E. Housman, originally published in his bestselling collection Shropshire Lad (1896). The poem focuses on a funeral held for an athlete who, as the title suggests, has died young. The speaker praises—or seems to praise—the young man for departing early from his earthy life, but in doing so also reveals a general anxiety and, perhaps, confusion about the meaning of mortality. Nothing is revealed about the circumstances around the young man's death, and there is a tension running throughout the poem between the grim realities of death and the speaker's attempt to memorialize the athlete through elegant language.
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The Full Text of “To an Athlete Dying Young”
1The time you won your town the race
2We chaired you through the market-place;
3Man and boy stood cheering by,
4And home we brought you shoulder-high.
5Today, the road all runners come,
6Shoulder-high we bring you home,
7And set you at your threshold down,
8Townsman of a stiller town.
9Smart lad, to slip betimes away
10From fields where glory does not stay,
11And early though the laurel grows
12It withers quicker than the rose.
13Eyes the shady night has shut
14Cannot see the record cut,
15And silence sounds no worse than cheers
16After earth has stopped the ears.
17Now you will not swell the rout
18Of lads that wore their honours out,
19Runners whom renown outran
20And the name died before the man.
21So set, before its echoes fade,
22The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
23And hold to the low lintel up
24The still-defended challenge-cup.
25And round that early-laurelled head
26Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
27And find unwithered on its curls
28The garland briefer than a girl’s.
The Full Text of “To an Athlete Dying Young”
1The time you won your town the race
2We chaired you through the market-place;
3Man and boy stood cheering by,
4And home we brought you shoulder-high.
5Today, the road all runners come,
6Shoulder-high we bring you home,
7And set you at your threshold down,
8Townsman of a stiller town.
9Smart lad, to slip betimes away
10From fields where glory does not stay,
11And early though the laurel grows
12It withers quicker than the rose.
13Eyes the shady night has shut
14Cannot see the record cut,
15And silence sounds no worse than cheers
16After earth has stopped the ears.
17Now you will not swell the rout
18Of lads that wore their honours out,
19Runners whom renown outran
20And the name died before the man.
21So set, before its echoes fade,
22The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
23And hold to the low lintel up
24The still-defended challenge-cup.
25And round that early-laurelled head
26Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
27And find unwithered on its curls
28The garland briefer than a girl’s.
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“To an Athlete Dying Young” Summary
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“To an Athlete Dying Young” Themes
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Youth and Glory
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Fear and Mortality
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “To an Athlete Dying Young”
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Lines 1-4
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. -
Lines 5-8
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town. -
Lines 9-12
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. -
Lines 13-16
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears -
Lines 17-20
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. -
Lines 21-24
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. -
Lines 25-28
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.
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“To an Athlete Dying Young” Symbols
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Laurel
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“To an Athlete Dying Young” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
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Allusion
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Apostrophe
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Assonance
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Caesura
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Consonance
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Enjambment
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Irony
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Metaphor
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Paradox
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Polyptoton
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“To an Athlete Dying Young” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Chaired
- Threshold
- Lad
- Betimes
- Laurel
- Record
- Stopped
- Swell
- Rout
- Renown
- Fleet
- Sill
- Lintel
- Garland
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “To an Athlete Dying Young”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“To an Athlete Dying Young” Speaker
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“To an Athlete Dying Young” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “To an Athlete Dying Young”
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More “To an Athlete Dying Young” Resources
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External Resources
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A Shropshire Lad — The full text of Housman's most popular book of poems, from which "To an Athlete Dying Young" is taken.
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The Invention of Love — A clip from a play by Tom Stoppard, which imagines A.E. Housman visiting the classical underworld.
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Meryl Streep Reads Housman — Meryl Streep reads the poem in this clip from the Oscar-winning film Out of Africa, set at the time of British colonial rule in Kenya.
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Ezra Pound's Parody — In this poem, American modernist poet Ezra Pound mocks Housman's tendency towards "woe."
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Shropshire's History — A web resource about the history of Shropshire, the English county in which Housman's most famous work is set.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by A. E. Housman
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