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His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

A. E. Housman

When the journey’s over, There’ll be time enough to sleep.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Enough Journey Sleep Time
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
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Concur Glory Knowledge Literature Man Masterwork Men P Writing
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 do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Choose Rid Words
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
Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Earth Heaven High Strong
To justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMAN

God Justification Man One Liner Way
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
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
Tomorrow, more’s the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
A. E. HOUSMAN
Ten thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Effort Myself Time
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
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
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

Draw Happiness Meaning Perfection Poetry Understand
The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Break Dance Leaving Print
The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
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
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Hands Hell Myself World
White in the moon the long road lies.
A. E. HOUSMAN
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Animal Definition Myself Poetry
Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
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
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Bloom Flower Nature Tree
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
Housman 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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Arrogant Greatness Hero Himself Lonely Man Misery Poet
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.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Hands Life Myself Stand Stay Ways Wonder

His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

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His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

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