A. E. Housman Quotes

We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.

Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.

There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.

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.

They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.

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.

Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man’s deceiver Was never mine.