In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
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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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To justify God’s ways to man.
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The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
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We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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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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The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
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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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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.
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And 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.
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I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
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I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.
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Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
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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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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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Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
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Ten thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.
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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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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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Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
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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.
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Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
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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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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. HOUSMAN