To justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMANRelated Topics

To justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMANYou 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. HOUSMANSome men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
A. E. HOUSMANWe now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
A. E. HOUSMANHope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man’s deceiver Was never mine.
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.
A. E. HOUSMANThe house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. HOUSMANWhen the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.
A. E. HOUSMANHis folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.
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.
A. E. HOUSMANI think that to transfuse emotion – not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader’s sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer – is the peculiar function of poetry.
A. E. HOUSMANBut 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.
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. HOUSMANThe laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me.
A. E. HOUSMANGood religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A. E. HOUSMANThere, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. HOUSMAN