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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.

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
Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Fire Friend Hollow Light Shoulder
This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they’re in trouble And I am not.
A. E. HOUSMAN
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
And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Cheer Doubt Ear Emotion Fear Scare Silence Sound Stop Worse
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Drink Fellow Hurt
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Concur Glory Knowledge Literature Man Masterwork Men P Writing
To justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMAN

God Justification Man One Liner Way
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Beer Belief Cause Home Lost Loyalty Name Popular Way
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Belief Believe Book Drink Food Greatness Hope Loyal Soul Today Worship Yesterday
Oh, ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Dance Drink World
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
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

Emotion Poetry Reader Transmit
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
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Bloom Flower Nature Tree
Ten thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Effort Myself Time

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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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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