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Stars, I have seen them fall, But when they drop and die No star is lost at all From all the star-sown sky. The toil of all that be Helps not the primal fault It rains into the sea And still the sea is salt.

A. E. Housman

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A. E. Housman
Age: 77 †
Born: 1859
Born: January 1
Died: 1936
Died: January 1
Classical Philologist
Classical Scholar
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Worcs
A. E. Housman
Fall
Faults
Sown
Lost
Sky
Rains
Helping
Star
Primal
Stills
Rain
Toil
Still
Sea
Salt
Seen
Fault
Stars
Drop
Dies
Helps

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I think that to transfuse emotion - not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader's sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer - is the peculiar function of poetry.
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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 you true, And the soul that was born to die for you And whistle and I'll be there.
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Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
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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? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
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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.
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His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.
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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.
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Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
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Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder So leave alone the grass That I am under.
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They put arsenic in his meat And stared aghast to watch him eat They poured strychnine in his cup And shook to see him drink it up.
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A moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
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Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
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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. The British regulars who made the retreat from Mons, beginning August 24, 1914.
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If a man will comprehend the richness and variety of the universe, and inspire his mind with a due measure of wonder and awe, he must contemplate the human intellect not only on its heights of genius but in its abysses of ineptitude.
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Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
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With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
A. E. Housman
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Oh when I was in love with you, Then I was clean and brave, And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave. And now the fancy passes by, And nothing will remain, And miles around they'll say that I Am quite myself again.
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I sought them far and found them, The sure, the straight, the brave, The hearts I lost my own to, The souls I could not save They braced their belts about them, They crossed in ships the sea, They sought and found six feet of ground, And there they died for me.
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Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
A. E. Housman
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We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.
A. E. Housman