Athlete Dying Young

The loud roar of a crowd chanting your name, the sweat dripping down your face as you concentrate, the excitement and satisfaction you feel after your team win’s for the first time. Any athlete can relate that the thrill of being in the spotlight is an exciting, rewarding feeling; some would do anything to stay in the spotlight as long as they can. The poem by Alfred E. Housman, commonly known as A.E Housman, “To an Athlete Dying Young’’ emphasizes his belief that it is better to die in one’s prime than to be forgotten in the twilight of your life. Housman’s life experiences with death, loneliness, and heartbreak inspired his poem “To an Athlete Dying Young”.
Alfred Edward Housman was born in Fockbury, United Kingdom on March 26, 1859. He

The poem takes place in England during the 19th century at a funeral held for a young athlete. In the first stanza , Housman suggests that in order to stay in the minds of others, one must die in their prime years. “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” (Housman, 1-4). The speaker recalls when the young athlete won a big race, and remembers the excitement and joy the athlete attained through his victory. In the second stanza, the tone changes from remembering the athlete’s best moments in life, to honoring his death. “Today, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town” (To an Athlete Dying Young). Although Housman’s message is not to be taken literally, he dwells upon the fact that the older you get, the more obsolete one’s life becomes (Cummings Study). The reader can assume that if the athlete were to have died later in life, the crowd wouldn't have had the same emotions as losing a successful athlete. Within the poem, Housman uses metaphors to represent death. “Eyes the shady night has shut Cannot see the record cut, And silence sounds no worse than cheers” (Housman, 13-15 ). Fame is temporary, however Housman implies that now that the athlete has died, people will always remember him as a successful athlete and will be spared from forgetting the athlete in old age. The message in his poem is that it is better to reach the pinnacle of your life when you are young and then die soon after. He implies it would be a tragedy to be famous and successful for a short time as a young person and then to live a long, uneventful life following that success. Living a long life after tasting fame for such a brief time, is to live a life of loss and