A.E. Housman Quotes

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All knots that lovers tie
Are tied to sever.
Here shall your sweetheart lie,
Untrue for ever.
A.E. Housman Quotes: All knots that lovers tie<br>Are
Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Nature, not content with denying
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
A.E. Housman Quotes: I, a stranger and afraid<br
Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Ten thousand times I've done
...down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
A.E. Housman Quotes: ...down in lovely muck I've
I see
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;

- from Poem XLI
A.E. Housman Quotes: I see<br />In many an
The Laws Of God, The Laws Of Man

The laws of God, the laws of man
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: Let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, Say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbor to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hellfire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can
These foreign laws of God and man.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The Laws Of God, The
There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A.E. Housman Quotes: There, by the starlit fences
The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the end of our story-book.
(Introductory lecture as professor of Latin at University College, London, 3 October 1892)
A.E. Housman Quotes: The sum of things to
With Rue My Heart Is Laden
With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.
A.E. Housman Quotes: With Rue My Heart Is
Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Tis the old wind in
When the lad for longing sighs,
Mute and dull of cheer and pale,
If at death's own door he lies,
Maiden, you can heal his ail.
Lovers' ills are all to buy:
The wan look, the hollow tone,
The hung head, the sunken eye,
You can have them for your own.
Buy them, buy them: eve and morn
Lovers' ills are all to sell.
Then you can lie down forlorn;
But the lover will be well.
A.E. Housman Quotes: When the lad for longing
Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Earth and high heaven are
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
A.E. Housman Quotes: On Wenlock Edge the wood's
The thoughts of others
Were light and fleeting,
Of lovers' meeting
Or luck or fame.
Mine were of trouble,
And mine were steady;
So I was ready
When trouble came.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The thoughts of others<br>Were light
Good creatures, do you love your lives
And have you ears for sense?
Here is a knife like other knives,
That cost me eighteen pence.
I need but stick it in my heart
And down will come the sky,
And earth's foundations will depart
And all you folk will die.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Good creatures, do you love
Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,
Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.
Think rather,
call to thought, if now you grieve a little,
The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.
Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry
I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn;
Sweat ran and blood sprang out and I was never sorry:
Then it was well with me, in days ere I was born.
Now, and I muse for why and never find the reason,
I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun.
Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season:
Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.
Ay, look: high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation;
All thoughts to rive the heart are here, and all are vain:
Horror and scorn and hate and fear and indignation
Oh why did I awake? when shall I sleep again?
A.E. Housman Quotes: Be still, my soul, be
In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
A.E. Housman Quotes: In every American there is
And friends abroad must bear in mind
Friends at home they leave behind.
Oh, I shall be stiff and cold
When I forget you, hearts of gold;
The land where I shall mind you not
Is the land where all's forgot.
And if my foot returns no more
To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore,
Luck, my lads, be with you still
By falling stream and standing hill,
By chiming tower and whispering tree,
Men that made a man of me.
About your work in town and farm
Still you'll keep my head from harm,
Still you'll help me, hands that gave
A grasp to friend me to the grave.
A.E. Housman Quotes: And friends abroad must bear
Lie you easy, dream you light,
And sleep you fast for aye;
And luckier may you find the night
Than ever you found the day.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Lie you easy, dream you
You smile upon your friend to-day, To-day his ills are over; You hearken to the lover's say, And happy is the lover. 'Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never: I shall have lived a little while Before I die for ever.
A.E. Housman Quotes: You smile upon your friend
In the morning, in the morning,
In the happy field of hay,
Oh they looked at one another
By the light of day.
In the blue and silver morning
On the haycock as they lay,
Oh they looked at one another
And they looked away.
A.E. Housman Quotes: In the morning, in the
Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Experience has taught me, when
Good religious poetry ... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Good religious poetry ... is
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The tree of man was
Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Existence is not itself a
I think that to transfuse emotion - not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader's sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer - is the peculiar function of poetry.
A.E. Housman Quotes: I think that to transfuse
I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
A.E. Housman Quotes: I am not a pessimist
To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.
A.E. Housman Quotes: To be a textual critic
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Into my heart an air
The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild;
He has devoured the infant child.
The infant child is not aware
It has been eaten by a bear."
"Infant Innocence
A.E. Housman Quotes: The Grizzly Bear is huge
In my own shire, if I was sad
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
And standing hills, long to remain,
Shared their short-lived comrade's pain.
And bound for the same bourn as I,
On every road I wandered by,
Trod beside me, close and dear,
The beautiful and death-struck year:
Whether in the woodland brown
I heard the beechnut rustle down,
And saw the purple crocus pale
Flower about the autumn dale;
Or littering far the fields of May
Lady-smocks a-bleaching lay,
And like a skylit water stood
The bluebells in the azured wood.

Yonder, lightening other loads,
The season range the country roads,
But here in London streets I ken
No such helpmates, only men;
And these are not in plight to bear,
If they would, another's care.
They have enough as 'tis: I see
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;
And till they drop they needs must still
Look at you and wish you ill.
A.E. Housman Quotes: In my own shire, if
Give me a land of boughs in leaf
A land of trees that stand;
Where trees are fallen there is grief;
I love no leafless land.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Give me a land of
A moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
A.E. Housman Quotes: A moment's thought would have
From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.
Now
for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.
Speak now, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say;
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.
A.E. Housman Quotes: From far, from eve and
And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A.E. Housman Quotes: And silence sounds no worse
There's this to say of love and breath
They give a man a taste for death.
A.E. Housman Quotes: There's this to say of
The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The troubles of our proud
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Luck's a chance, but trouble's
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Now, of my threescore years
Others, I am not the first,
Have willed more mischief than they durst:
If in the breathless night I too
Shiver now, 'tis nothing new.
More than I, if truth were told,
Have stood and sweated hot and cold,
And through their veins in ice and fire
Fear contended with desire.
Agued once like me were they,
But I like them shall win my way
Lastly to the bed of mould
Where there's neither heat nor cold.
But from my grave across my brow
Plays no wind of healing now,
And fire and ice within me fight
Beneath the suffocating night.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Others, I am not the
The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air.
And he that stands will die for nought, and home there's no returning.
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The King with half the
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries
These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things for pay.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Epitaph on an Army of
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Ale, man, ale's the stuff
The weeping Pleiads wester,
And the moon is under seas;
From bourn to bourn of midnight
Far sighs the rainy breeze:

It sighs from a lost country
To a land I have not known;
The weeping Pleiads wester,
And I lie down alone.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The weeping Pleiads wester,<br />
The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The rainy Pleiads wester Orion
When I examine my mind and try to discern clearly in the matter, I cannot satisfy myself that there are any such things as poetical ideas. No truth, it seems to me, is too precious, no observation too profound, and no sentiment too exalted to be expressed in prose. The utmost I could admit is that some ideas do, while others do not, lend themselves kindly to poetical expression; and that those receive from poetry an enhancement which glorifies and almost transfigures them, and which is not perceived to be a separate thing except by analysis.
A.E. Housman Quotes: When I examine my mind
On occasions, after drinking a pint of beer at luncheon, there would be a flow into my mind with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza, accompanied, not preceded by a vague notion of the poem which they were destined to form a part of ... I say bubble up because, so far as I could make out, the source of the suggestions thus proffered to the brain was the pit of the stomach.
A.E. Housman Quotes: On occasions, after drinking a
Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Lovers lying two and two
Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Now hollow fires burn out
And while the sun and moon endure Luck's a chance but trouble's sure, I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good.
A.E. Housman Quotes: And while the sun and
Stone, steel, dominions pass,
Faith too, no wonder;
So leave alone the grass
That I am under.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Stone, steel, dominions pass,<br>Faith too,
If a man will comprehend the richness and variety of the universe, and inspire his mind with a due measure of wonder and awe, he must contemplate the human intellect not only on its heights of genius but in its abysses of ineptitude ...
A.E. Housman Quotes: If a man will comprehend
The year might age, and cloudy
The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
Breathed from beyond the snows,
And I had hope of those.
They came and were and are not
And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
That ever can ensue
Must now be worse and few.
So here's an end of roaming
On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
For summer's parting sighs,
And then the heart replies.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The year might age, and
When the bells justle in the tower
The hollow night amid,
Then on my tongue the taste is sour
Of all I ever did.
A.E. Housman Quotes: When the bells justle in
If truth in hearts that perish
Could move the powers on high,
I think the love I bear you
Should make you not to die.
Sure, sure, if steadfast meaning,
If single thought could save,
The world might end to-morrow,
You should not see the grave.
This long and sure-set liking,
This boundless will to please,
-Oh, you should live for ever
If there were help in these.
But now, since all is idle,
To this lost heart be kind,
Ere to a town you journey
Where friends are ill to find.
A.E. Housman Quotes: If truth in hearts that
Tis five years since, `An end,' said I;
`I'll march no further, time to die.
All's lost; no worse has heaven to give.'
Worse has it given, and yet I live.

I shall not die to-day, no fear:
I shall live yet for many a year,
And see worse ills and worse again,
And die of age and not of pain.

When God would rear from earth aloof
The blue height of the hollow roof,
He sought him pillars sure and strong,
And ere he found them sought them long.

The stark steel splintered from the thrust,
The basalt mountain sprang to dust,
The blazing pier of diamond flawed
In shards of rainbow all abroad.

What found he, that the heavens stand fast?
What pillar proven firm at last
Bears up so light that world-seen span?
The heart of man, the heart of man.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Tis five years since, `An
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the color of his hair.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Oh who is that young
Look not in my eyes, for fear
They mirror true the sight I see,
And there you find your face too clear
And love it and be lost like me.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Look not in my eyes,
Poems very seldom consist of poetry and nothing else; and pleasure can be derived also from their other ingredients. I am convinced that most readers, when they think they are admiring poetry, are deceived by inability to analyse their sensations, and that they are really admiring, not the poetry of the passage before them, but something else in it, which they like better than poetry.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Poems very seldom consist of
These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead. The British regulars who made the retreat from Mons, beginning August 24, 1914.
A.E. Housman Quotes: These, in the day when
White in the moon the long road lies.
A.E. Housman Quotes: White in the moon the
His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.
A.E. Housman Quotes: His folly has not fellow
How clear, how lovely bright,
How beautiful to sight
Those beams of morning play;
How heaven laughs out with glee
Where, like a bird set free,
Up from the eastern sea
Soars the delightful day.

To-day I shall be strong,
No more shall yield to wrong,
Shall squander life no more;
Days lost, I know not how,
I shall retrieve them now;
Now I shall keep the vow
I never kept before.

Ensanguining the skies
How heavily it dies
Into the west away;
Past touch and sight and sound
Not further to be found,
How hopeless under ground
Falls the remorseful day.
A.E. Housman Quotes: How clear, how lovely bright,<br
Because I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked you, and I promised I'd throw the thought away. To put the world between us We parted stiff and dry: 'Farewell,' said you, 'forget me.' 'Fare well, I will,' said I. If e'er, where clover whitens The dead man's knoll, you pass, And no tall flower to meet you Starts in the trefoiled grass, Halt by the headstone shading The heart you have not stirred, And say the lad that loved you Was one that kept his word.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Because I liked you better
They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.
A.E. Housman Quotes: They say my verse is
Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his body with poisons that none could injure him. When captured by the Romans he tried in vain to poison himself, then ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Mithridates, he died old. Housman's
To justify God's ways to man.
A.E. Housman Quotes: To justify God's ways to
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.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The time you won your
Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking
Spins the heavy world around.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking<br>Spins
Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away
Oh, when I was in love with you,
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.
And now the fancy passes by,
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Oh, when I was in
The bells they sound on Bredon, And still the steeples hum. "Come all to church, good people"- Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; I hear you, I will come.
A.E. Housman Quotes: The bells they sound on
I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
A.E. Housman Quotes: I do not choose the
VIII

'Farewell to barn and stack and tree,
Farewell to Severn shore.
Terence, look your last at me,
For I come home no more.

'The sun burns on the half-mown hill,
By now the blood is dried;
And Maurice amongst the hay lies still
And my knife is in his side.

'My mother thinks us long away;
'Tis time the field were mown.
She had two sons at rising day,
To-night she'll be alone.

'And here's a bloody hand to shake,
And oh, man, here's good-bye;
We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,
My blood hands and I.

'I wish you strength to bring you pride,
And a love to keep you clean,
And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,
At racing on the green.

'Long for me the rick will wait,
And long will wait the fold,
And long will stand the empty plate,
And dinner will be cold.'

IX

On moonlit heath and lonesome bank
The sheep beside me graze;
And yon the gallows used to clank
Fast by the four cross ways.

A careless shepherd once would keep
The flocks by moonlight there,
And high amongst the glimmering sheep
The dead man stood on air.

They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:
The whistles blow forlorn.
And trains all night groan on the rail
To men that die at morn.

There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,
Or wakes, as may betide,
A better lad,
A.E. Housman Quotes: VIII<br /><br />'Farewell to barn
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's aware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over then there'll be time enough to sleep.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Clay lies still, but blood's
Terence, this is stupid stuff: You eat your victuals fast enough; There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear, To see the rate you drink your beer. But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, It gives a chap the belly-ache. The cow, the old cow, she is dead; It sleeps well the horned head: We poor lads, 'tis our turn now To hear such tunes as killed the cow. Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme Your friends to death before their time. Moping, melancholy mad: Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Terence, this is stupid stuff:
Oh fair enough are sky and plain,
But I know fairer far:
Those are as beautiful again
That in the water are;
The pools and rivers wash so clean
The trees and clouds and air,
The like on earth was never seen,
And oh that I were there.
These are the thoughts I often think
As I stand gazing down
In act upon the cressy brink
To strip and dive and drown;
But in the golden-sanded brooks
And azure meres I spy
A silly lad that longs and looks
And wishes he were I.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Oh fair enough are sky
Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Who made the world I
Shake hands, we shall never be friends; give over:
I only vex you the more I try.
All's wrong that ever I've done and said,
And nought to help it in this dull head:
Shake hands, goodnight, goodbye.
But if you come to a road where danger
Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,
Be good to the lad that loves you true
And the soul that was born to die for you,
And whistle and I'll be there.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Shake hands, we shall never
Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poisons
And the knife at her neck,

The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
`O young man, O my slayer
To-morrow you shall die.'

O Queen of air and darkness
I think 'tis truth you say,
And I shall die to-morrow;
But you shall die to-day.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Her strong enchantments failing,<br />
Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings All desired and timely things. All whom morning sends to roam, Hesper loves to lead them home. Home return who him behold, Child to mother, sheep to fold, Bird to nest from wandering wide: Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.
A.E. Housman Quotes: Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings All
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