Sinner’s Rue

by A. E. Housman

    I walked alone and thinking,
    And faint the nightwind blew
    And stirred on mounds at crossways
    The flower of sinner’s rue.

    Where the roads part they bury
    Him that his own hand slays,
    And so the weed of sorrow
    Springs at the four cross ways.

    By night I plucked it hueless,
    When morning broke ‘twas blue:
    Blue at my breast I fastened
    The flower of sinner’s rue.

    It seemed a herb of healing,
    A balsam and a sign,
    Flower of a heart whose trouble
    Must have been worse than mine.

    Dead clay that did me kindness,
    I can do none to you,
    But only wear for breastknot
    The flower of sinner’s rue.