In Midnights of November

by A. E. Housman

    In midnights of November,
    When Dead Man’s Fair is nigh,
    And danger in the valley,
    And anger in the sky,

    Around the huddling homesteads
    The leafless timber roars,
    And the dead call the dying
    And finger at the doors.

    Oh, yonder faltering fingers
    Are hands I used to hold;
    Their false companion drowses
    And leaves them in the cold.

    Oh, to the bed of ocean,
    To Africk and to Ind,
    I will arise and follow
    Along the rainy wind.

    The night goes out and under
    With all its train forlorn;
    Hues in the east assemble
    And cocks crow up the morn.

    The living are the living
    And dead the dead will stay,
    And I will sort with comrades
    That face the beam of day.