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Even 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. 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
Almost
Pleasure
Extinguish
Understanding
Poetic
Draw
Perfect
Draws
May
Meaning
Sometimes
Usually
Even
Poetry

More quotes by A. E. Housman

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They say my verse is sad: no wonder Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.
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I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
A. E. Housman
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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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I 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. Housman
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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.
A. E. Housman
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To justify God's ways to man.
A. E. Housman
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Wanderers 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. Housman
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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 I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways.
A. E. Housman
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Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
A. E. Housman
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They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.
A. E. Housman
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The rainy Pleiads wester Orion plunges prone, And midnight strikes and hastens, And I lie down alone.
A. E. Housman
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Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A. E. Housman
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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 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. Housman
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Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure.
A. E. Housman
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Clay lies still, but blood's a rover Breath's aware that will not keep. Up, lad: when the journey's over then there'll be time enough to sleep.
A. E. Housman
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The 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. Housman
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Three minutes thought would suffice to find this out but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.
A. E. Housman
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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
A. E. Housman
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The bells they sound on Bredon, And still the steeples hum. Come all to church, good people- Oh, noisy bells, be dumb I hear you, I will come.
A. E. Housman
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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.
A. E. Housman