A. E. Housman Quotes
-
When I was one-and-twentyI heard him say again,'The heart out of the bosomWas never given in vain;'Tis paid with sighs a plentyAnd sold for endless rue.'And I am two-and-twentyAnd oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
-
Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.
-
With rue my heart is ladenFor golden friends I had,For many a rose-lipt maidenAnd many a lightfoot lad.By brooks too broad for leapingThe lightfoot boys are laid;The rose-lipt girls are sleepingIn fields where roses fade.
-
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.
-
The most important truth which has ever been uttered, and the greatest discovery ever made in the moral world.
-
Oh, when I was in love with youThen I was clean and brave,And miles around the wonder grewHow well did I behave.And now the fancy passes byAnd nothing will remain,And miles around they'll say that IAm quite myself again.
-
But if you ever come to a road where danger; Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share. Be good to the lad who loves you true, And the soul that was born to die for you; And whistle and I'll be there.
-
The difference between an icicle and a red-hot poker is really much slighter than the difference between truth and falsehood or sense and nonsense; yet it is much more immediately noticeable and much more universally noticed, because the body is more sensitive than the mind.
-
Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.
-
I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
-
And how am I to face the oddsOf man’s bedevilment and God’s?I, a stranger and afraidIn a world I never made.
-
Tell me not here, it needs not saying,What tune the enchantress playsIn aftermaths of soft SeptemberOr under blanching mays,For she and I were long acquaintedAnd I knew all her ways.
-
My heart always warms to people who do not come to see me, especially Americans, to whom it seems to be more of an effort.
-
There, like the wind through woods in riot,Through him the gale of life blew high;The tree of man was never quiet:Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.
-
The bells they sound on BredonAnd still the steeples hum.'Come all to church, good people,' -Oh, noisy bells, be dumb;I hear you, I will come.
-
Happy bridegroom, Hesper bringsAll desired and timely things.All whom morning sends to roam,Hesper loves to lead them home.Home return who him behold,Child to mother, sheep to fold,Bird to nest from wandering wide:Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.
-
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.
-
Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,Gold that I never see;Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedgeThat will not shower on me.
-
Most men are rather stupid, and most of those who are not stupid are, consequently, rather vain.
-
Far in a western brooklandThat bred me long agoThe poplars stand and trembleBy pools I used to know.
-
He stood, and heard the steepleSprinkle the quarters on the morning town.One, two, three, four, to market-place and peopleIt tossed them down.Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour,He stood and counted them and cursed his luck;And then the clock collected in the towerIts strength, and struck.
-
His folly has not fellowBeneath the blue of dayThat gives to man or womanHis heart and soul away.
-
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.
-
To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.