A. E. Housman
A. E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman, usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known to the general public for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems wistfully evoke the dooms and disappointments of youth in the English countryside. Their beauty, simplicity and distinctive imagery appealed strongly to late Victorian and Edwardian taste, and to many early 20th-century English composers both before and after the First World War. Through...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth26 March 1859
Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
Tomorrow, more's the pity, / Away we both must hie, To air the ditty / and to earth I.
In my fourteenth year I had gone up to London for the first time, to see as many of the sights as could be got into a fortnight.
A neck God made for other use / Than strangling in a string.
Ensanguining the skies, How heavily it dies, Into the west away; Past touch and sight and sound, Not further to be found, How hopeless under ground, Falls the remorseful day
Think no more; 'tis only thinking / Lays lads underground.
And then the clock collected in the tower / Its strength and struck.
May will be fine next year as like as not: / Oh ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.
No change, though you lie under / The land you used to plough.
Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.