“You won…cheering…shoulder-high…glory…honors”—the speaker’s words reflect the glory and honor of the young athlete. Dying young is thought to be one of the most tragic circumstances. The thoughts of lives wasted, dreams unattained, memories never conceived. Most people desire to live to a ripe old age as to take full advantage of their time on earth and to experience as much as they can. Most people would be appalled to have premature death viewed in a positive light. However, in “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman, the speaker challenges traditional ideas about death and contends that dying young is the best time to die. He makes the claim that achievements die long before the achiever leaving the person with little to live for. The poem takes place at the athlete’s funeral and the story is expressed through the eyes of one of one of the deceased’s closest friends. Ironically, rather than morn for his deceased friend, the speaker reflects on how lucky the athlete was to die in his glory years. The speaker contrasts the two times he remembers carrying the athlete shoulder high. The time the athlete won a race, gaining him public recognition, "Man and boy stood cheering by / And home we brought you shoulder-high". And now, in the present when they carry him to his grave, "Shoulder-high we bring you home / And set you at your threshold down". The “threshold” symbolized the athlete’s grave and his entrance into the afterlife. The poem’s ironic tone becomes more depressing as the story goes along. The speaker seems to envy the athlete’s good fortune of dying young as he evidently understands that times only get worse as people get older. "Smart lad, to slip betimes away; From fields were glory does not stay". The athlete is lucky to avoid seeing his fame and greatness gradually slip away, eventually becoming just another insignificant being that no one remembers. “And early though the laurel grows; it withers quicker than the rose". The laurel symbolizes...