A. E. Housman Quotes (72 Quotes)

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.

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.

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.

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

Far in a western brookland That bred me long ago The poplars stand and tremble By Pools I used to know.

Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,
Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;
And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chain
The love of comrades cannot take away.

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.

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.

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

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

Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young.

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

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.

And fire and ice within me fight Beneath the suffocating night.

Good night ensured release, Imperishable peace, Have these for yours. While sky and sea and land And earth's foundations stand And heaven endures. These three lines are on the tablet over Housman's grave in the parish church at Ludlow, Shropshire, England.

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.

Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.

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

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.

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

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover Breath's a ware that will not keep. Up, lad when the journey's over There'll be time enough to sleep.

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