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When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.

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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Emotion Poetry Reader Transmit
Do not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Book Learning Poet Poetry Reading
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Drink Fellow Hurt
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
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
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
Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Goodness Sick 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
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
Look not in my eyes, for fear They mirror true the sight I see, And there you find your face too clear And love it and be lost like me.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Eyes Face Fear Lost Love Myself Sight
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
Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Book Interesting Man Men
But if you ever come to a road where danger; Or guilt or anguish or shame’s to share. Be good to the lad who loves you true, And the soul that was born to die for you; And whistle and I’ll be there.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Born Dangerous Death Guilty Myself Road Shame Share Soul
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
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

When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.

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When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.

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