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. HOUSMANHousman 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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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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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Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
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There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
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All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
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The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
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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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Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
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Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
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That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
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Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.
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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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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.
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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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I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
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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