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I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.

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
Terriers
Rats
Define
Poetry
Terrier

More quotes by A. E. Housman

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White in the moon the long road lies.
A. E. Housman
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Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
A. E. Housman
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I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
A. E. Housman
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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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Good night ensured release, Imperishable peace, Have these for yours. * While sky and sea and land And earth's foundations stand And heaven endures. *These three lines are on the tablet over Housman's grave in the parish church at Ludlow, Shropshire, England
A. E. Housman
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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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June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter's cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.
A. E. Housman
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Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose but young men think it is, and we were young.
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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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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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.
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
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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.
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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Hope lies to mortals And most believe her, But man's deceiver Was never mine.
A. E. Housman
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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.
A. E. Housman
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The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. Housman
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Look not in my eyes, for fear They mirror true the sight I see, And there you find your face too clear And love it and be lost like me.
A. E. Housman
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To justify God's ways to man.
A. E. Housman
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Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.
A. E. Housman