Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
A. E. HOUSMANBut 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.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
-
-
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 -
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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 -
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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 -
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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 -
Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover; Breath’s aware that will not keep. Up, lad: when the journey’s over then there’ll be time enough to sleep.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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 -
With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
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 -
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 -
And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN -
Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
A. E. HOUSMAN