A.E. Housman

“VIII'Farewell to barn and stack and tree,Farewell to Severn shore.Terence, look your last at me,For I come home no more.'The sun burns on the half-mown hill,By now the blood is dried;And Maurice amongst the hay lies stillAnd my knife is in his side.'My mother thinks us long away;'Tis time the field were mown.She had two sons at rising day,To-night she'll be alone.'And here's a bloody hand to shake,And oh, man, here's good-bye;We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,My blood hands and I.'I wish you strength to bring you pride,And a love to keep you clean,And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,At racing on the green.'Long for me the rick will wait,And long will wait the fold,And long will stand the empty plate,And dinner will be cold.'IXOn moonlit heath and lonesome bankThe sheep beside me graze;And yon the gallows used to clankFast by the four cross ways.A careless shepherd once would keepThe flocks by moonlight there,And high amongst the glimmering sheepThe dead man stood on air.They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:The whistles blow forlorn.And trains all night groan on the railTo men that die at morn.There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,Or wakes, as may betide,A better lad, if things went right,Than most that sleep outside.And naked to the hangman's nooseThe morning clocks will ringA neck God made for other useThan strangling in a string.And sharp the link of life will snap,And dead on air will standHeels that held up as straight a chapAs treads upon the land.So here I'll watch the night and waitTo see the morning shine,When he will hear the stroke of eightAnd not the stroke of nine;And wish my friend as sound a sleepAs lads' I did not know,That shepherded the moonlit sheepA hundred years ago.”

“The Laws Of God, The Laws Of ManThe laws of God, the laws of man,He may keep that will and can;Now I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me;And if my ways are not as theirsLet them mind their own affairs. Their deeds I judge and much condemn,Yet when did I make laws for them?Please yourselves, say I, and theyNeed only look the other way.But no, they will not; they must stillWrest their neighbour to their will,And make me dance as they desireWith jail and gallows and hell-fire.And how am I to face the oddsOf man’s bedevilment and God’s?I, a stranger and afraidIn a world I never made.They will be master, right or wrong;Though both are foolish, both are strong, And since, my soul, we cannot fly To Saturn or Mercury,Keep we must, if keep we can,These foreign laws of God and man.”

“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.”

“The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail.”

“Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Into my heart an air that killsFrom yon far country blows:What are those blue remembered hills,What spires, what farms are those?That is the land of lost content,I see it shining plain,The happy highways where I wentAnd cannot come again.”

“Good creatures, do you love your lives And have you ears for sense?Here is a knife like other knives, That cost me eighteen pence. I need but stick it in my heart And down will come the sky,And earth's foundations will depart And all you folk will die.”

“Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?Oh they're taking him to prison for the color of his hair.”

“Could man be drunk for ever      With liquor, love, or fights,Lief should I rouse at morning      And lief lie down of nights.But men at whiles are sober      And think by fits and starts,And if they think, they fasten      Their hands upon their hearts.”

“Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled,Followed their mercenary callingAnd took their wages and are dead. Their shoulders held the sky suspended;They stood, and earth's foundations stay;What God abandoned, these defended,And saved the sum of things for pay.”

“When I examine my mind and try to discern clearly in the matter, I cannot satisfy myself that there are any such things as poetical ideas. No truth, it seems to me, is too precious, no observation too profound, and no sentiment too exalted to be expressed in prose. The utmost I could admit is that some ideas do, while others do not, lend themselves kindly to poetical expression; and that those receive from poetry an enhancement which glorifies and almost transfigures them, and which is not perceived to be a separate thing except by analysis.”

“The stars have not dealt me the worst they could do:My pleasures are plenty, my troubles are two.But oh, my two troubles they reave me of rest,The brains in my head and the heart in my breast.Oh, grant me the ease that is granted so free,The birthright of multitudes, give it to me,That relish their victuals and rest on their bedWith flint in the bosom and guts in the head.”

“Because I liked you betterThan suits a man to say,It irked you, and I promisedI'd throw the thought away.To put the world between usWe parted stiff and dry:'Farewell,' said you, 'forget me.''Fare well, I will,' said I.If e'er, where clover whitensThe dead man's knoll, you pass,And no tall flower to meet youStarts in the trefoiled grass,Halt by the headstone shadingThe heart you have not stirred,And say the lad that loved youWas one that kept his word.”

“Shake hands, we shall never be friends; give over:I only vex you the more I try.All's wrong that ever I've done and said,And nought to help it in this dull head:Shake hands, goodnight, goodbye.But if you come to a road where danger Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,Be good to the lad that loves you trueAnd the soul that was born to die for you,And whistle and I'll be there.”

“Stars, I have seen them fall,But when they drop and dieNo star is lost at allFrom all the star-sown sky.The toil of all that beHelps not the primal fault;It rains into the seaAnd still the sea is salt.”

“I to my perilsOf cheat and charmerCame clad in armourBy stars benign.Hope lies to mortalsAnd most believe her,But man's deceiver Was never mine.The thoughts of othersWere light and fleeting,Of lovers' meetingOr luck or fame.Mine were of trouble,And mine were steady;So I was readyWhen trouble came.”

“They say my verse is sad: no wonder.Its narrow measure spansRue for eternity, and sorrowNot mine, but man'sThis is for all ill-treated fellowsUnborn and unbegot,For them to read when they're in troubleAnd I am not.”

“The half-moon westers low, my love,And the wind brings up the rain;And wide apart lie we, my love,And seas between the twain.I know not if it rains, my love, In the land where you do lie;And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,You know no more than I.”

“In the morning, in the morning,In the happy field of hay,Oh they looked at one anotherBy the light of day.In the blue and silver morningOn the haycock as they lay,Oh they looked at one anotherAnd they looked away.”

“You smile upon your friend to-day,To-day his ills are over;You hearken to the lover's say,And happy is the lover.'Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never:I shall have lived a little whileBefore I die for ever.”

“If truth in hearts that perishCould move the powers on high,I think the love I bear youShould make you not to die.Sure, sure, if steadfast meaning,If single thought could save,The world might end to-morrow,You should not see the grave.This long and sure-set liking,This boundless will to please,-Oh, you should live for everIf there were help in these.But now, since all is idle,To this lost heart be kind,Ere to a town you journey Where friends are ill to find.”

“When I watch the living meet,And the moving pageant fileWarm and breathing through the streetWhere I lodge a little while,If the heats of hate and lustIn the house of flesh are strong,Let me mind the house of dustWhere my sojourn shall be long.In the nation that is notNothing stands that stood before;There revenges are forgot,And the hater hates no more;Lovers lying two and twoAsk not whom they sleep beside,And the bridegroom all night throughNever turns him to the bride.”

“Loveliest of TreesLoveliest of trees, the cherry nowIs hung with bloom along the bough,And stands about the woodland rideWearing 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 bloomFifty springs are little room,About the woodlands I will goTo see the cherry hung with snow.”

“Here dead we lie 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.”

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

“The tree of man was never quiet: Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.”

“Some men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.”

“Diffugere NivesHorace, Odes, iv, 7The snows are fled away, leaves on the shawsAnd grasses in the mead renew their birth,The river to the river-bed withdraws,And altered is the fashion of the earth.The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fearAnd unapparelled in the woodland play.The swift hour and the brief prime of the yearSay to the soul, Thou wast not born for aye.Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of springTreads summer sure to die, for hard on hersComes autumn with his apples scattering;Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs.But oh, whate'er the sky-led seasons mar,Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams;Come we where Tullus and where Ancus areAnd good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams.Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall addThe morrow to the day, what tongue has told?Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has hadThe fingers of no heir will ever hold.When thou descendest once the shades among,The stern assize and equal judgment o'er,Not thy long lineage nor thy golden tongue,No, nor thy righteousness, shall friend thee more.Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chainThe love of comrades cannot take away.”

“First don: O cuckoo, shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice? Second don: State the alternative preferred, With reasons for your choice.”

“When the lad for longing sighs,Mute and dull of cheer and pale,If at death's own door he lies,Maiden, you can heal his ail.Lovers' ills are all to buy:The wan look, the hollow tone,The hung head, the sunken eye,You can have them for your own.Buy them, buy them: eve and mornLovers' ills are all to sell.Then you can lie down forlorn;But the lover will be well.”

“If it chance your eye offends you,Pluck it out lad, and be sound:'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,And many a balsam grows on ground.And if your hand or foot offend you,Cut it off, lad, and be whole;But play the man, stand up and end you,When your sickness is your soul.”

“Along the field as we came byA year ago, my love and I,The aspen over stile and stoneWas talking to itself alone.'Oh who are these that kiss and pass?A country lover and his lass;Two lovers looking to be wed;And time shall put them both to bed,But she shall lie with earth above,And he beside another love.'And sure enough beneath the treeThere walks another love with me, And overhead the aspen heavesIts rainy-sounding silver leaves;And I spell nothing in their stir,But now perhaps they speak to her,And plain for her to understandThey talk about a time at handWhen I shall sleep with clover clad,And she beside another lad.”

“It nods and curtseys and recoversWhen the wind blows above,The nettle on the graves of loversThat hanged themselves for love.The nettle nods, the wind blows over,The man, he does not move,The lover of the grave, the loverThat hanged himself for love.”

“The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning; Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air.And he that stands will die for nought, and home there's no returning. The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.”

“With Rue My Heart Is LadenWith rue my heart is ladenFor golden friends I had,For many a rose-lipt maidenAnd many a lightfoot lad.By brooks too broad for leapingThe lightfoot boys are laid;The rose-lipt girls are sleepingIn fields where roses fade.”

“Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,But young men think it is, and we were young.”

“To stand up straight and tread the turning mill,To lie flat and know nothing and be still,Are the two trades of man; and which is worseI know not, but I know that both are ill.”

“Stone, steel, dominions pass,Faith too, no wonder;So leave alone the grassThat I am under.”

“All knots that lovers tieAre tied to sever.Here shall your sweetheart lie,Untrue for ever.”

“The thoughts of othersWere light and fleeting,Of lovers' meetingOr luck or fame.Mine were of trouble,And mine were steady;So I was readyWhen trouble came.”

“Who made the world I cannot tell;'Tis made, and here I am in hell.”

“June suns, you cannot store themTo warm the winter's cold,The lad that hopes for heavenShall fill his mouth with mould.”

“Up, lad: thews that lie and cumberSunlit pallets never thrive;Morns abed and daylight slumberWere not meant for man alive.”

“Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.”

“The sum of things to be known is inexhaustible, and however long we read, we shall never come to the end of our story-book."(Introductory lecture as professor of Latin at University College, London, 3 October 1892)”

“The time you won your town the raceWe chaired you through the market-place;Man and boy stood cheering by,And home we brought you shoulder-high.Today, the road all runners come,Shoulder-high we bring you home,And set you at your threshold down,Townsman of a stiller town.Smart lad, to slip betimes awayFrom fields where glory does not stay,And early though the laurel growsIt withers quicker than the rose.Eyes the shady night has shutCannot see the record cut,And silence sounds no worse than cheersAfter earth has stopped the ears.Now you will not swell the routOf lads that wore their honours out,Runners whom renown outranAnd the name died before the man.So set, before its echoes fade,The fleet foot on the sill of shade,And hold to the low lintel upThe still-defended challenge-cup.And round that early-laurelled headWill flock to gaze the strengthless dead,And find unwithered on its curlsThe garland briefer than a girl’s.”

“I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.”

“Give me a land of boughs in leafA land of trees that stand;Where trees are fallen there is grief;I love no leafless land.”