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XII. [When I watch the living meet,]

by A. E. Housman, 1896

When I watch the living meet,
 And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
 Where I lodge a little while,

If the heats of hate and lust
 In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
 Where my sojourn shall be long.

In the nation that is not
 Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
 And the hater hates no more;

Lovers lying two and two
 Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
 Never turns him to the bride.

Published in A Shropshire Lad
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