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.
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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. 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.
A. E. HOUSMANTen thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.
A. E. HOUSMANThe 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. HOUSMANGive 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. HOUSMANEarth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
A. E. HOUSMANNature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. HOUSMANHousman 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.
A. E. HOUSMANThe rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. HOUSMANBut men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.
A. E. HOUSMANNow 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. HOUSMANThey say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.
A. E. HOUSMANThe house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. HOUSMANOh 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.
A. E. HOUSMANAle, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
A. E. HOUSMANHere dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young.
A. E. HOUSMAN