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.
A. E. HOUSMANThey say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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White in the moon the long road lies.
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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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The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
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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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And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
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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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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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Ten thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.
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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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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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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
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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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The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. HOUSMAN