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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

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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Die Drop Fall Sky Stars
There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.
A. E. HOUSMAN
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. HOUSMAN
The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. HOUSMAN
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

Grief Land Love Myself Stand Tree
Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A. E. HOUSMAN
We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Believe Darkness Earth Greatness Hope Loyal Peace Soul Today Worship Yesterday
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Belief Believe Book Drink Food Greatness Hope Loyal Soul Today Worship Yesterday
In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Conceal Country Cunning
Do not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Book Learning Poet Poetry Reading
The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Alone Hatton Lying Midnight Orion Prone Rain Strike Wester
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. HOUSMAN

Afraid Face God Man Myself World
I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Afraid Myself Stranger World
The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Break Dance Leaving Print
June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter’s cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Heaven Himself Hope Store Warm
All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Knot Lover Sever Tie Untrue

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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