A. E. Housman Quotes

With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.

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.

I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.

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.

Good religious poetry… is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.

Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

White in the moon the long road lies.

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.

On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

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.