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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

Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Goodness Sick World
I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Agree Discuss Fact Feeling One Liner Right Word Wrong
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 average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Average Conservatism Criticism Man
There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Fence Halt Happiness Happy Joy Mind Satisfy Soul
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Animal Definition Myself Poetry
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

Fire Friend Hollow Light Shoulder
In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Conceal Country Cunning
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
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

Knowledge Literature Low Mad Opinion Perception Personal Stupid Thinking
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
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
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
A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Believe Humanity Long Luck Moment Pain Painful Struggle
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. HOUSMAN

Heaven Himself Hope Store Warm

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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