Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
A. E. HOUSMANDo 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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
-
-
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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 -
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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. HOUSMAN -
White in the moon the long road lies.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they’re in trouble And I am not.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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 -
I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
A. E. HOUSMAN