106 Quotes by A.E. Housman

Because I liked you betterThan suits a man to say,It irked you, and I promisedI'd throw the thought away.To put the world between usWe parted stiff and dry:'Farewell,' said you, 'forget me.''Fare well, I will,' said I.If e'er, where clover whitensThe dead man's knoll, you pass,And no tall flower to meet youStarts in the trefoiled grass,Halt by the headstone shadingThe heart you have not stirred,And say the lad that loved youWas one that kept his word.

Westward 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.

Ale, man, Ale's the stuff to drink,for fellows whom it hurts to think.

The signal-fires of warningThey blaze, but none regard;And on through night to morningThe world runs ruinward.

Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled,Followed their mercenary callingAnd took their wages and are dead. Their shoulders held the sky suspended;They stood, and earth's foundations stay;What God abandoned, these defended,And saved the sum of things for pay.

Tis the old wind in the old anger,But then it threshed another wood.

Oh on my breast in days hereafterLight the earth should lie,Such weight to bear is now the air,So heavy hangs the sky.(Additional Poems, X)

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.

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 vowI never kept before.