Into my heart an air that kills

This poem sums up the feelings of returning ‘home’ but then again, never being able to return home. A. E. Housman grew up in Shropshire, a neighbouring county to Herefordshire, where I spent my childhood. Could this poem be the lament of any expat or perhaps more generally, anyone who has left the place where they grew up?

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

From A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman

Embed from Getty Images
View from Symond’s Yat Rock, Herefordshire

About ASWilliams

Angela has dual nationality, GB/NL and lives in Nijmegen. She has had short fiction published on multiple platforms and was a runner-up in the 2018 and 2017 Casket of Fictional Delights Flash Competitions. Her writing has also been published and performed by amongst others: Mslexia, Liars’ League, Reflex Fiction, the Casket and Reckon Review. In 2020 she published her short story collection, Healer, under pseudonym, Susan Carey. Tweets at @su_carey In 2025 she published her poetry collection, The Palliative Horse.

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This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman, Blue Remembered Hills, Expat's Lament, Herefordshire, Shropshire. Bookmark the permalink.

3 Responses to Into my heart an air that kills

Jany says:

June 15, 2012 at 2:45 pm

I spent part of my chlidhood in Shropshire, and this poem is still one I have always intended to read from start to finish and have never got round to as yet. I love the words “the land of lost content.” That about sums up for me the feeling of longing I sometmes have for England, whilst being aware of the fact that it is an England that doesn`t exist any more. Perfectly put.

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susancarey says:

June 15, 2012 at 8:10 pm

Thanks for commenting, Jany. Housman does sum it up perfectly, doesn’t he. Nice to know one is not alone in those feelings.

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