what is along the field as we came by about?

what is the poem?

This one?

pam

Along the field as we came by
by: Alfred Edward Housman

[
ALONG the field as we came by
A year ago, my love and I,
The aspen over stile and stone
Was talking to itself alone.
‘Oh who are these that kiss and pass?
A country lover and his lass;
Two lovers looking to be wed;
And time shall put them both to bed,
But she shall lie with earth above,
And he beside another love.’

And sure enough beneath the tree
There walks another love with me,
And overhead the aspen heaves
Its rainy-sounding silver leaves;
And I spell nothing in their stir,
But now perhaps they speak to her,
And plain for her to understand
They talk about a time at hand
When I shall sleep with clover clad,
And she beside another lad.

hmm, I was very awake. Luckily Pam still has her wits about her. Nice poem.

The speaker walks in the field in the first paragraph and sees a tree (aspen). It is the tree that is speaking between "-s. It says: hey, who are those two people walking there (the speaker and his girlfriend). A boy and a girl that look as if they are going to get married (probably they were walking quite intimately as lovers do). But she will die, and he will be walking here again with another love.

In the second paragraph the speaker says that the tree was right and is wondering if it is now speaking to his new girlfriend, saying the same things.

Do you understand it now?

Interpretate this poem.

To an Athlete Dying Young
Alfred Edward Housman

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.

To-day, 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 seethe record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the root
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.

"You were famous and we loved you. Now that you're dead, we will remember you as this hero, and not be disappointed that you grew ordinary and old."

pam

Reminds me very much of the story in Herodotus' Historiae:

(Croesus asks Solon who is the most happy man on earth
Cleobis and Biton. Despotic Croesus, taken back, persisted in asking who was the second happiest, fully expecting that he would at least win second place. But Solon refused to flatter or be intimidated and named two young men from Argos, CLEOBIS [kle'-o-bis], or KLEOBIS, and BITON [beye'ton], who had won prizes in the athletic games. Their mother was a priestess of Hera, who had to be present at the festival of the goddess. Once when the oxen did not arrive in time, her two sons yoked themselves to their mother's chariot and brought her to the temple, a journey of five miles. The whole congregation marvelled at this deed, congratulating the youths for their strength and their mother for having such fine sons. She was overjoyed and prayed before the statue of the goddess to give her sons the best thing for human beings to attain. After they had sacrificed and feasted, Cleobis and Biton went to sleep in the temple and never woke up. The end of their life was the very best and thereby god showed clearly how it is better to be dead than alive. Statues of the brothers were set up in Delphi, since they had been the best of men.