E. Housman
E. Housman
morning memories skins
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.
lying moon white
White in the moon the long road lies.
philosophy historical world
I am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
heart hands half
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder, And went with half my life about my ways.
wise moon men
Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill, And while the sun and moon endure Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure, I'd face it as a wise man would, And train for ill and not for good.
grief land giving
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.
long painful moments
A moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
happiness joy mind
The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
spring years white
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
god letting-go men
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.
feels man pockets wonders
The young man feels his pockets / And wonders what's to pay.
cherry hung
About the woodlands I will go / To see the cherry hung with snow.
clock collected strength tower
And then the clock collected in the tower / Its strength and struck.
bears falling feather folly
And the feather pate of folly / Bears the falling of the sky.