They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
A. E. HOUSMANGreat literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
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June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter’s cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.
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There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
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Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
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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.
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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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Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
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Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
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Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man’s deceiver Was never mine.
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The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
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The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
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Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
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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