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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

A. E. Housman

Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. HOUSMAN
I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Agree Discuss Fact Feeling One Liner Right Word Wrong
The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Happiness Happy Joy Mind Satisfy Soul
The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Average Conservatism Criticism Man
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Business Life Men Motivation Think Thinking Young
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
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Collection Count Curse Himself Strength
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
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

Content Lost Myself Plain Shine
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Arrogant Greatness Hero Himself Lonely Man Misery Poet
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

Cup Drink Eat Meat
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Born Dangerous Death Guilty Myself Road Shame Share Soul
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

Hands Life Myself Stand Stay Ways Wonder
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

Emotion Poetry Reader Transmit
I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Afraid Myself Stranger World
I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Choose Rid Words

Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

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