E. Housman
E. Housman
blew eve knit life morning stuff
From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither: here am I
coloured hear high love morning sunday
Here of a Sunday morning / My love and I would lie, / And see the coloured counties, / And hear the larks so high / About us in the sky.
lie midnight rainy stroke
The rainy Pleiads wester, / Orion plunges prone, / The stroke of midnight ceases, / And I lie down alone.
brute certainty cursed hopeful plans sat tempest whatever
We for a certainty are not the first have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed whatever brute and blackguard made the world.
air both earth
Tomorrow, more's the pity, / Away we both must hie, To air the ditty / and to earth I.
ceases line poetry
If a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
milton
Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.
decree god man
The laws of God, the laws of man he may keep that will and can; not I: let God and man decree laws for themselves and not for me.
perfect understanding sometimes
Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
religious appreciated poetry-is
Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
heart rose rue
With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
hurt drinking men
Why, if 'tis dancing you would be, There's brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man. Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink For fellows whom it hurts to think: Look into the pewter pot To see the world as the world's not.
men odds world
And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.
lying moon dust
White in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love. Still hangs the hedge without a gust, Still, still the shadows stay: My feet upon the moonlit dust Pursue the ceaseless way. The world is round, so travellers tell, And straight through reach the track, Trudge on, trudge on, 'twill all be well, The way will guide one back. But ere the circle homeward hies Far, far must it remove: White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love.