Quotes from A. E. Housman

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour,He stood and counted them and cursed his luck;And then the clock collected in the towerIts strength, and struck.

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.

Oh many a peer of England brewsLivelier liquor than the Muse,And malt does more than Milton canTo justify God's ways to man.Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drinkFor fellows whom it hurts to think.

With rue my heart is ladenFor golden friends I had,For many a rose-lipped maidenAnd many a lightfoot lad.

Hope lies to mortalsAnd most believe her,But man's deceiverWas never mine.

And fire and ice within me fightBeneath the suffocating night.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry nowIs hung with bloom along the bough.

And how am I to face the oddsOf man's bedevilment and God's?I, a stranger and afraidIn a world I never made.

Lovers lying two and twoAsk not whom they sleep beside,And the bridegroom all night throughNever turns him to the bride.

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;Breath's a ware that will not keep.Up, lad: when the journey's overThere'll be time enough to sleep.

Happy bridegroom, Hesper bringsAll desired and timely things.All whom morning sends to roam,Hesper loves to lead them home.Home return who him behold,Child to mother, sheep to fold,Bird to nest from wandering wide:Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.

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.

Mithridates, he died old.

In all the endless road you treadThere's nothing but the night.

If a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.

The laws of God, the laws of man,He may keep that will and can;Not I: let God and man decreeLaws for themselves and not for me.

The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.

June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter's cold...

By brooks too broad for leapingThe lightfoot boys are laid.

Good night; ensured release,Imperishable peace,Have these for yours.While sky and sea and landAnd earth's foundations standAnd heaven endures.

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 cheersAfter earth has stopped the ears.

When I was one-and-twentyI heard a wise man say,"Give crowns and pounds and guineasBut not your heart away."