Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. HOUSMANTomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. HOUSMANWho 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. HOUSMANNow 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. HOUSMANAle, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
A. E. HOUSMANEven when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
A. E. HOUSMANOh 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.
A. E. HOUSMANThe rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. HOUSMANAnd 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. HOUSMANEarth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
A. E. HOUSMANStars, 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. HOUSMANHe 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. HOUSMANThere, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. HOUSMANTo justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMANThe average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. HOUSMANThe 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.
A. E. HOUSMANLife, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
A. E. HOUSMAN