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.
A. E. HOUSMANThe thoughts of others Were light and fleeting, Of lovers’ meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble, And mine were steady; So I was ready When trouble came.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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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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Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
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The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
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They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.
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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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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
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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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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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Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
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June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter’s cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.
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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
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Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
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Ten thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.
A. E. HOUSMAN