To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.
A. E. HousmanWhen I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, `Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.' But I was one-and-twenty No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, `The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue.' And I am two-and-twenty And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
A. E. HousmanInto my hear an air that kills through yon far country blows what are those blue remembered hills what spires,what farms are those? that is the land of lost content I can see it shining plain the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
A. E. HousmanIn every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
A. E. HousmanEven when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
A. E. HousmanThe rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. HousmanHis folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.
A. E. HousmanGood religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A. E. HousmanWanderers eastward, wanderers west, Know you why you cannot rest? 'Tis that every mother's son Travails with a skeleton. Lie down in the bed of dust; Bear the fruit that bear you must; Bring the eternal seed to light, And morn is all the same as night.
A. E. HousmanOh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrist? And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
A. E. HousmanNature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. HousmanSome men are more interesting than their books but my book is more interesting than its man.
A. E. HousmanYou smile upon your friend to-day, To-day his ills are over; You hearken to the lover's say, And happy is the lover. 'Tis late to hearken, late to smile, But better late than never: I shall have lived a little while Before I die for ever.
A. E. HousmanThe troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
A. E. HousmanMithridates, 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 body with poisons that none could injure him. When captured by the Romans he tried in vain to poison himself, then ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him.
A. E. HousmanDo not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.
A. E. HousmanGive me a land of boughs in leaf A land of trees that stand; Where trees are fallen there is grief; I love no leafless land.
A. E. HousmanWhite in the moon the long road lies, The moon stands blank above; White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love. Still hangs the hedge without a gust, Still, still the shadows stay: My feet upon the moonlit dust Pursue the ceaseless way. The world is round, so travellers tell, And straight through reach the track, Trudge on, trudge on, 'twill all be well, The way will guide one back. But ere the circle homeward hies Far, far must it remove: White in the moon the long road lies That leads me from my love.
A. E. HousmanThree minutes thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
A. E. HousmanWhy, if 'tis dancing you would be, There's brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? 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: Look into the pewter pot To see the world as the world's not.
A. E. HousmanThe laws of God, the laws of man, He may keep that will and can; Not I: let God and man decree Laws for themselves and not for me.
A. E. HousmanStone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder; So leave alone the grass That I am under.
A. E. HousmanWe now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
A. E. HousmanI am not a pessimist but a pejorist (as George Eliot said she was not an optimist but a meliorist); and that philosophy is founded on my observation of the world, not on anything so trivial and irrelevant as personal history.
A. E. HousmanThat is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
A. E. HousmanA moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
A. E. HousmanAll knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
A. E. HousmanBecause I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked you, and I promised I'd throw the thought away. To put the world between us We parted stiff and dry: 'Farewell,' said you, 'forget me.' 'Fare well, I will,' said I. If e'er, where clover whitens The dead man's knoll, you pass, And no tall flower to meet you Starts in the trefoiled grass, Halt by the headstone shading The heart you have not stirred, And say the lad that loved you Was one that kept his word.
A. E. HousmanExperience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
A. E. HousmanBut men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts
A. E. HousmanGreat literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
A. E. HousmanWith rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
A. E. HousmanAnd 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.
A. E. HousmanThey say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.
A. E. Housman