Death Is Not As Tragic As You Think It Is - A Brief Analysis of A.E Housman's To An Athlete Dying Young

A.E Housman was a British classical scholar and poet. He was best known for his remarkable work A Shropshire Lad, a collection of poems focusing on the disappointment of youthful life. To An Athlete Dying Young is one of the poems in Housman's fine collection.

To An Athlete Dying Young is a peom addressed to a young athlete who died prematurely, at the peak of his career. Instead of considering the sudden death of the athlete as a tragedy, the narrator takes, perhaps as a consolation, an entirely different perspective about death.

Interestingly, the narrator praises the athlete for dying young when the memories of the athlete's laurels are still quite fresh in the minds of everyone. In short, the narrator implies that it is a good thing to die young when one's fame and achievements are still on the lips of everyone. The narrator thinks the dead lad is smart for dying young.

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.

This is because the narrator believes that there is no point dying at old age when one's fame and achievements would have been forgotten while one is alive. Therefore, the athlete's death ought not to be mourned because he would not live to see his record broken.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Here is the full poem. I hope you'll find it quite interesting:

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.

Today, 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.

Image source

• References
  https://owlcation.com/humanities/A-E-Housmans-To-an-Athlete-Dying-Young
  https://www.enotes.com/topics/an-athlete-dying-young/themes

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