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. HOUSMANLuck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.
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Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
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In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
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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.
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The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
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And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
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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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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.
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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.
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But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.
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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.
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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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Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
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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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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