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. HOUSMANLook 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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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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.
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Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
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Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
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And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
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The 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.
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Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man’s deceiver Was never mine.
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Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
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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.
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To justify God’s ways to man.
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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
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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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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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Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
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Great 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.
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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.
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The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
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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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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.
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Oh, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
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I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
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When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.
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Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
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That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
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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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In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
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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