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. HOUSMANAnd 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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.
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Who made the world I cannot tell; ‘Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.
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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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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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All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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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.
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And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
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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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They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
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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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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.
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Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
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Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
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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