To whom does the poet turn when seeking to rationalise early death and offer a grieving country some comfort on this Wednesday, the occasion of the nationally telecast funeral of cricketer Phillip Hughes?

The most poignant of icons is the fatally wounded young hero, and English poet A.E. Housman  did it best in To an Athlete Dying Young.

Hughes' funeral service in the assembly hall of his old high school in the NSW town of Macksville evokes images of the 1896 poem, set in an English village.

NSW country towns, like those in other Australian states, view their champions with great reverence, the entire population sometimes switching allegiance to a certain Sydney cricket or football club when the local lad signs on.

So Sydney's Western Suburbs grade cricket club would have added fans from Macksville when 17-year-old Hughes travelled south to join Michael Clarke, the future Australian captain.

Yet, in his endearingly rural, cheeky way, Hughes could have told his townsfolk he was heading down to check out the prize cattle at the Easter Show, or talk to the agent for his dad Greg's bananas.

Three years later, when he scored twin centuries in his second cricket Test in South Africa, it was, as Housman wrote in his opening line, "the time you won your town the race".

Macksville metaphorically chaired him shoulder-high and, now, six years later, will mourn him as a "townsman of a stiller town".

Early death of a local hero impacts most on the communities of rural towns.

Those of us who travelled to Gunnedah for the funeral of West's prop John Donnelly will forever remember the collective grief, captured beautifully by this newspaper, in the line, "A Town Liked Dallas".

Some will take issue with Housman for suggesting Hughes' "slip betimes away" allowed him a degree of immortality because he died before his fame faded.

Perhaps the poet is offering comfort to the grieving. It is unlikely any of Hughes' fabled teammates attending the funeral will ponder the notion of dying young to maintain heroic status.

They know that in cricket, as in Catch 22, the catch is in the score of things you can't control.

One day you might score a century, but then you might go out for a duck.

This lottery luck life unifies them.

Nor will the people of Macksville lament that Hughes will never see his "record cut", his achievements bettered by himself, or others.

Sixty two years ago, boxer Dave Sands was killed in a road accident outside Dungog, down the Pacific Highway from Macksville.

He was the British Empire middleweight champion and the same age as Hughes when he died.

The old folk of Dungog will tell you with certainty that Sands would have beaten Sugar Ray Robinson for the world title, just as the townspeople of Macksville know young Hughes would have gone on to set records for the ages.

To an Athlete Dying Young

By A.E. 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.

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.

Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry Third Edition (1983)