Oh, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
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Oh, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
A. E. HOUSMANThey carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
A. E. HOUSMANNature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. HOUSMANThey say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.
A. E. HOUSMANHere dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young.
A. E. HOUSMANThis is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they’re in trouble And I am not.
A. E. HOUSMANTherefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
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. HOUSMANThere, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. HOUSMANGive me a land of boughs in leaf A land of trees that stand; Where trees are fallen there is grief; I love no leafless land.
A. E. HOUSMANAnd malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMANThe rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
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. HOUSMANI do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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. HOUSMANLuck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
A. E. HOUSMAN