Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man’s deceiver Was never mine.
A. E. HOUSMANI 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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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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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Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
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Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
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They put arsenic in his meat And stared aghast to watch him eat; They poured strychnine in his cup And shook to see him drink it up.
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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.
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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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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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They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.
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In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
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Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
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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, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
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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.
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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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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
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Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
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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.
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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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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.
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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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Here 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.
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All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
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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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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. HOUSMAN