A. E. Housman Quotes

The loveliest of trees the cherry now is hung with bloom along the bough and stands about the wood...

When I examine my mind and try to discern clearly in the matter, I cannot satisfy myself that there ...

How clear, how lovely bright,How beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play;How heaven laughs ou...

Lie you easy, dream you light,And sleep you fast for aye;And luckier may you find the nightThan ever...

When the lad for longing sighs,Mute and dull of cheer and pale,If at death's own door he lies,Maiden...

You smile upon your friend to-day,To-day his ills are over;You hearken to the lover's say,And happy ...

Along the field as we came byA year ago, my love and I,The aspen over stile and stoneWas talking to ...

There pass the careless peopleThat call their souls their own:Here by the road I loiter,How idle and...

Oh fair enough are sky and plain,But I know fairer far:Those are as beautiful againThat in the water...

Others, I am not the first,Have willed more mischief than they durst:If in the breathless night I to...

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect und...

Terence, this is stupid stuff:You eat your victuals fast enough;There can't be much amiss, 'tis clea...

Now hollow fires burn out to black,And lights are fluttering low:Square your shoulders, lift your pa...

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sha...

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write...

Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's f...

Clay lies still but blood's a rover Breath's a ware that will not keep. Up lad: when the journey's ...

I a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.

Clay lies still but blood's a rover Breath's a ware that will not keep Up lad when the journey's ...

Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out . but thought is irksome and three minutes is...

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out... Perfect u...

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

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

And how am I to face the odds of man's bedevilment and God's? I a stranger and afraid in a world I ...

Nature not content with denying him the ability to think has endowed him with the ability to write...

Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, i...

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

Iniquity it is; but pass the can. My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;Our only portion is the ...

Oh on my breast in days hereafterLight the earth should lie,Such weight to bear is now the air,So he...

The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the...

The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the...

To-day I shall be strong,No more shall yield to wrong,Shall squander life no more;Days lost, I know ...

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

June suns, you cannot store themTo warm the winter's cold,The lad that hopes for heavenShall fill hi...

The thoughts of othersWere light and fleeting,Of lovers' meetingOr luck or fame.Mine were of trouble...

Stone, steel, dominions pass,Faith too, no wonder;So leave alone the grassThat I am under.

To stand up straight and tread the turning mill,To lie flat and know nothing and be still,Are the tw...

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

Who made the world I cannot tell;'Tis made, and here I am in hell.

Stars, I have seen them fall,But when they drop and dieNo star is lost at allFrom all the star-sown ...

It nods and curtseys and recoversWhen the wind blows above,The nettle on the graves of loversThat ha...

Into my heart an air that killsFrom yon far country blows:What are those blue remembered hills,What ...

They say my verse is sad: no wonder.Its narrow measure spansRue for eternity, and sorrowNot mine, bu...

Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and...

Westward on the high-hilled plainsWhere for me the world began, Still, I think, in newer veinsFrets ...

The half-moon westers low, my love,And the wind brings up the rain;And wide apart lie we, my love,An...

If it chance your eye offends you,Pluck it out lad, and be sound:'Twill hurt, but here are salves to...

And friends abroad must bear in mindFriends at home they leave behind.Oh, I shall be stiff and coldW...

IVREVEILLEWake: the silver dusk returningUp the beach of darkness brims,And the ship of sunrise burn...

Into my heart an air that killsFrom yon far country blows:What are those blue remembered hills,What ...

Wanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest?'Tis that every mother's sonTravail...

In my own shire, if I was sadHomely comforters I had:The earth, because my heart was sore,Sorrowed f...

Therefore, since the world has stillMuch good, but much less good than ill,And while the sun and moo...

White in the moon the long road lies,The moon stands blank above;White in the moon the long road lie...

I seeIn many an eye that measures meThe mortal sickness of a mindToo unhappy to be kind.Undone with ...

The stars have not dealt me the worst they could do:My pleasures are plenty, my troubles are two.But...

Tis the old wind in the old anger,But then it threshed another wood.

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