Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.
A. E. HOUSMANTell 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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
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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.
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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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He 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.
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I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.
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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.
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Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
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All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
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Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man’s deceiver Was never mine.
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Look not in my eyes, for fear They mirror true the sight I see, And there you find your face too clear And love it and be lost like me.
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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
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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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I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover; Breath’s aware that will not keep. Up, lad: when the journey’s over then there’ll be time enough to sleep.
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Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
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White in the moon the long road lies.
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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.
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Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
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Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.
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They put arsenic in his meat And stared aghast to watch him eat; They poured strychnine in his cup And shook to see him drink it up.
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Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
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They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
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Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
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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