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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.

A. E. Housman

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.
A. E. HOUSMAN
Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Faith Grass Leave Myself Stone Wonder
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
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
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
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Act Experience Memory Morning Poetry Skin Teaching
And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Cheer Doubt Ear Emotion Fear Scare Silence Sound Stop Worse
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. HOUSMAN
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Die Hope Irony Lesson Life Lying Memory Shame War Wish
But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.
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

Heaven Himself Hope Store Warm
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Die Drop Fall Sky Stars
The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Break Dance Leaving Print
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

Boundation Feel Lover Lying Night Power Satisfy Self Esteem Sleep Try
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Bloom Flower Nature Tree
Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Ability Himself Nature Thinking Writing

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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