E. Housman
E. Housman
peace darkness earth
We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
play long tunes
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.
heart sea feet
I sought them far and found them, The sure, the straight, the brave, The hearts I lost my own to, The souls I could not save They braced their belts about them, They crossed in ships the sea, They sought and found six feet of ground, And there they died for me.
book men interesting
Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
thinking brain pudding
To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.
drinking beer two
On occasions, after drinking a pint of beer at luncheon, there would be a flow into my mind with sudden and unaccountable emotion, sometimes a line or two of verse, sometimes a whole stanza, accompanied, not preceded by a vague notion of the poem which they were destined to form a part of.... I say bubble up because, so far as I could make out, the source of the suggestions thus proffered to the brain was the pit of the stomach.
drinking men way
To justify God's ways to man.
wind snow saplings
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
humorous trouble ill
This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they're in trouble And I am not.
humorous hands world
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.
fall august heaven
These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead. The British regulars who made the retreat from Mons, beginning August 24, 1914.
friendship light fire
Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
men sorrow tears
They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.
lying believe men
Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine.