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The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.

A. E. Housman

And how am I to face the odds Of man’s bedevilment and God’s? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Afraid Face God Man Myself World
Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Poetry Words Writing
In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Conceal Country Cunning
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
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Concur Glory Knowledge Literature Man Masterwork Men P Writing
The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. HOUSMAN
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

Action Field Long Play Tune
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
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

Hands Hell Myself World
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

Death Excellence Friendship Live Lover Myself Smile
The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Average Conservatism Criticism Man
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
Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Fire Friend Hollow Light Shoulder
There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Fence Halt Happiness Happy Joy Mind Satisfy Soul
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
A. E. HOUSMAN
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Animal Definition Myself Poetry

The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.

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The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.

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