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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.

A. E. Housman

A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Believe Humanity Long Luck Moment Pain Painful Struggle
There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.
A. E. HOUSMAN
Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault; It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Die Drop Fall Sky Stars
The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Average Conservatism Criticism Man
To justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMAN

God Justification Man One Liner Way
The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Happiness Happy Joy Mind Satisfy Soul
I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Choose Rid Words
The 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. HOUSMAN
Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Faith Grass Leave Myself Stone Wonder
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Content Lost Myself Plain Shine
Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A. E. HOUSMAN
Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Earth Heaven High Strong
I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Afraid Myself Stranger World
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Knowledge Literature Low Mad Opinion Perception Personal Stupid Thinking
Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Goodness Sick World
I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
A. E. HOUSMAN

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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