Alfred Edward Housman Quotes

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.

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.

Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack, And leave your friends and go. Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread, Look not to left nor right: In all the endless road you tread There's nothing but the night.

With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipt maiden And many a lightfoot lad. By brooks too broad for leaping The lightfoot boys are laid; The rose-lipt girls are sleeping In fields where roses fade.

There, by the starlit fences, The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.

Far in a western brookland That bred me long ago The poplars stand and tremble By pools I used to know.

Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle, Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.

Into my heart an air that kills From 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 went And cannot come again.

Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, Gold that I never see; Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge That will not shower on me.

From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither; here am I.

There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

But from my grave across my brow Plays no wind of healing now, And fire and ice within me fight Beneath the suffocating night.

They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man, The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

The bells they sound on Bredon And still the steeples hum. "Come all to church, good people," — Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; I hear you, I will come.

And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.