A. E. Housman Quotes

83 quotes in 1264 categories

• White in the moon the long road lies.
• That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
• Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine.
• Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his…
• Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
• These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead.…
• But if you ever come to a road where danger; Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share. Be good to the lad who loves…
• There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
• Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
• The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
• Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness…
• Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
• But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts
• Good night; ensured release, Imperishable peace, Have these for yours. * While sky and sea and land And earth's foundations stand And heaven endures. *These…
• Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.
• Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
• And how am I to face the odds Of man's bedevilment and God's? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.
• Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?…
• We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
• Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and…

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