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

A. E. Housman

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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Enough Journey Sleep Time
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
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
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Cup Drink Eat Meat
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
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Animal Definition Myself Poetry
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
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Content Lost Myself Plain Shine
And how am I to face the odds Of man’s bedevilment and God’s? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Afraid Face God Man Myself World
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

Deep Feeling Light Love Lover Luck Thought Understand
The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Average Conservatism Criticism Man
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN
White in the moon the long road lies.
A. E. HOUSMAN
His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Day Heart Himself Man Soul Woman
The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Break Dance Leaving Print
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. HOUSMAN
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Drink Fellow Hurt
But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.
A. E. HOUSMAN
Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Action Field Long Play Tune
They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Apostles Culture Equality Grace Men Mindset Pleasure Saint World
All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Human Knowledge Precious Service
We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Believe Darkness Earth Greatness Hope Loyal Peace Soul Today Worship Yesterday
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. HOUSMAN
Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Collection Count Curse Himself Strength
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
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Business Life Men Motivation Think Thinking Young

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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