The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. HOUSMANThe average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
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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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Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
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His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.
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Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where. And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer.
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With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
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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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I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
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And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
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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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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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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
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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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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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Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
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Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
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A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
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When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.
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Oh, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
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The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
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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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All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
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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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The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
A. E. HOUSMAN