01UndatedThe 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.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
02UndatedThere pass the careless peopleThat call their souls their own:Here by the road I loiter,How idle and alone.Ah, past the plunge of plummet,In seas I cannot sound,My heart and soul and senses,World without end, are drowned.His folly has not fellowBeneath the blue of dayThat gives to man or womanHis heart and soul away.There flowers no balm to sain himFrom east of earth to westThat's lost for everlastingThe heart out of his breast.Here by the labouring highwayWith empty hands I stroll:Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,Lie lost my heart and soul.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
03UndatedInto 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 comeA.E. Housman / quote ↗
05UndatedOthers, I am not the first,Have willed more mischief than they durst:If in the breathless night I tooShiver now, 'tis nothing new.More than I, if truth were told,Have stood and sweated hot and cold,And through their veins in ice and fireFear contended with desire.Agued once like me were they,But I like them shall win my wayLastly to the bed of mouldWhere there's neither heat nor cold.But from my grave across my browPlays no wind of healing now,And fire and ice within me fightBeneath the suffocating night.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
06UndatedThe 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.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
07UndatedHow clear, how lovely bright,How beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play;How heaven laughs out with gleeWhere, like a bird set free,Up from the eastern sea Soars the delightful day.To-day I shall be strong,No more shall yield to wrong, Shall squander life no more;Days lost, I know not how,I shall retrieve them now;Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before.Ensanguining the skiesHow heavily it dies Into the west away;Past touch and sight and soundNot further to be found,How hopeless under ground Falls the remorseful day.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
08UndatedThey 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.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
09UndatedAll knots that lovers tieAre tied to sever.Here shall your sweetheart lie,Untrue for ever.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
10UndatedTerence, this is stupid stuff:You eat your victuals fast enough;There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,To see the rate you drink your beer.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
11UndatedEven when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
12UndatedJune suns, you cannot store themTo warm the winter's cold,The lad that hopes for heavenShall fill his mouth with mould.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
13UndatedWestward on the high-hilled plainsWhere for me the world began, Still, I think, in newer veinsFrets the changeless blood of man....There, when hueless is the westAnd the darkness hushes wide,Where the lad lies down to restStands the troubled dream beside.There, on thoughts that once were mine,Day looks down the eastern steep,And the youth at morning shineMakes the vow he will not keep.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
15UndatedStars, 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.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
16UndatedIVREVEILLEWake: the silver dusk returningUp the beach of darkness brims,And the ship of sunrise burningStrands upon the eastern rims.Wake: the vaulted shadow shaatters,Trampled to the floor it spanned,And the tent of night in tatters Straws the sky-pavilioned land.Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:Hear the drums of morning play;Hark, the empty highways crying"Who'll beyond the hills away?"Towns and countries woo together,Forelands beacon, belfries call;Never lad that trod on leatherLived to feast his heart with all.Up, lad: thews that lie and cumberSunlit pallets never thrive;Morns abed and daylight slumberWere not meant for man alive.Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;Breath's a ware that will not keepUp, lad: when the journey's overThere'll be time enough to sleep.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
17UndatedIniquity it is; but pass the can. My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;Our only portion is the estate of man: We want the moon, but we shall get no more. (Last Poems, IX)A.E. Housman / quote ↗
18UndatedI seeIn many an eye that measures meThe mortal sickness of a mindToo unhappy to be kind.Undone with misery, all they canIs to hate their felloA.E. Housman / quote ↗
19UndatedNature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
20UndatedOh fair enough are sky and plain,But I know fairer far:Those are as beautiful againThat in the water are;The pools and rivers wash so cleanThe trees and clouds and air,The like on earth was never seen,And oh that I were there.These are the thoughts I often thinkAs I stand gazing downIn act upon the cressy brinkTo strip and dive and drown;But in the golden-sanded brooksAnd azure meres I spyA silly lad that longs and looks And wishes he were I.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
21UndatedWhite in the moon the long road lies,The moon stands blank above;White in the moon the long road liesThat leads me from my love.Still hangs the hedge without a gust,Still, still the shadows stay:My feet upon the moonlit dustPursue 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 hiesFar, far must it remove:White in the moon the long road liesThat leads me from my love.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
22UndatedAle, man, Ale's the stuff to drink,for fellows whom it hurts to think.A.E. Housman / quote ↗
