Quotes from A. E. Housman

Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.

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…. The seat of this sensation is the pit of the stomach.

These, in the day when heaven was falling,The hour when earth's foundations fled,Followed their mercenary callingAnd took their wages and are dead.

His folly has not fellowBeneath the blue of dayThat gives to man or womanHis heart and soul away.

Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,Gold that I never see.

We now to peace and darknessAnd earth and thee restoreThy creature that thou madestAnd wilt cast forth no more.

When I was one-and-twentyI heard him say again,"The heart out of the bosomWas never given in vain;'Tis paid with sighs aplentyAnd sold for endless rue."And I am two-and-twenty,And Oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

Far in a western brooklandThat bred me long agoThe poplars stand and trembleBy pools I used to know.

Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May.

Oh, when I was in love with you,Then I was clean and brave,And miles around the wonder grewHow well I did behave.And now the fancy passes by,And nothing will remain,And miles around they'll say that IAm quite myself again.

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

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

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.

Some seed the bird devours, And some the season mars, But here and there will flower The solitary stars, And fields will yearly bear them, As light-leaved spring comes on, And luckless lads will wear them When I am dead and gone.

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.

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 say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.

Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.

His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

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.

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

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

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.

I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.