June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter’s cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.
A. E. HOUSMANAnd silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
More A. E. Housman Quotes
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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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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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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.
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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
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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.
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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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You smile upon your friend to-day, To-day his ills are over; You hearken to the lover’s say, And happy is the lover. ‘Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never: I shall have lived a little while Before I die for ever.
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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
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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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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.
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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.
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And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
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All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
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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