A. E. Housman Quotes

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 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.

Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again.

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.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.

The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where.

And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer.

I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.

In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.

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

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

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

The bells they sound on Bredon, And still the steeples hum.

"Come all to church, good people"- Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; I hear you, I will come.

If a man will comprehend the richness and variety of the universe, and inspire his mind with a due measure of wonder and awe, he must contemplate the human intellect not only on its heights of genius but in its abysses of ineptitude.

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

Give me a land of boughs in leaf A land of trees that stand;

Where trees are fallen there is grief; I love no leafless land.

Housman is one of my heroes and always has been.

He was a detestable and miserable man. Arrogant, unspeakably lonely, cruel, and so on, but and absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and a great scholar.

'Tis spring; come out to ramble The hilly brakes around, For under thorn and bramble About the hollow ground The primroses are found. And there's the windflower chilly With all the winds at play, And there's the Lenten lily That has not long to stay And dies on Easter day.

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

Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.

Into my hear an air that kills through yon far country blows what are those blue remembered hills what spires,what farms are those? that is the land of lost content I can see it shining plain the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.

Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.

The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.

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.

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.

I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.

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.

Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.

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

Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his body with poisons that none could injure him. When captured by the Romans he tried in vain to poison himself, then ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him.

Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings All 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.

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

The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail.

Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

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.

And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.

Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.

The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.

When the journey's over/There'll be time enough to sleep.

Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.

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

These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead. The British regulars who made the retreat from Mons, beginning August 24, 1914.

Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill, And while the sun and moon endure Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure, I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good.

White in the moon the long road lies.

Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill

The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.

Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure.

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

All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.