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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

A. E. Housman

June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter’s cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Heaven Himself Hope Store Warm
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Draw Happiness Meaning Perfection Poetry Understand
You 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. HOUSMAN

Death Excellence Friendship Live Lover Myself Smile
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Arrogant Greatness Hero Himself Lonely Man Misery Poet
Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. HOUSMAN
Here 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. HOUSMAN

Die Hope Irony Lesson Life Lying Memory Shame War Wish
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
Give 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. HOUSMAN

Grief Land Love Myself Stand Tree
And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Ears Earth Silence Worst
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. HOUSMAN
With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Friendship Heart Maidan
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. HOUSMAN

Hands Life Myself Stand Stay Ways Wonder
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Bloom Flower Nature Tree
Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Ability Himself Nature Thinking Writing
The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Average Conservatism Criticism Man
The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Alone Hatton Lying Midnight Orion Prone Rain Strike Wester

Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.

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Popular Authors

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