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.
A. E. HOUSMANThe house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they’re in trouble And I am not.
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His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.
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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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The 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.
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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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The 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.
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Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
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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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The 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.
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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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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
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I 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.
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And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
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When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.
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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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Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
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I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
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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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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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Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
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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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Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
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Ten thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.
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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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Oh 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.
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On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
A. E. HOUSMAN