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.
A. E. HOUSMANYou 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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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To justify God’s ways to man.
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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.
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With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
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Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
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Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt.
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Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where. And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer.
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Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.
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He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder, And went with half my life about my ways.
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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
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The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
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Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.
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But if you ever come to a road where danger; Or guilt or anguish or shame’s to share. Be good to the lad who loves you true, And the soul that was born to die for you; And whistle and I’ll be there.
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Housman is one of my heroes and always has been. He was a detestable and miserable man. Arrogant, unspeakably lonely, cruel, and so on, but and absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and a great scholar.
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Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.
A. E. HOUSMAN