A.E. Housman Quotes

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

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 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.

I 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 fello

IVREVEILLEWake: 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.

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.

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

There 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.