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I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made.

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
Stranger
Afraid
Made
Never
World

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Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.
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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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Oh I have been to Ludlow fair, and left my necktie God knows where. And carried half way home, or near, pints and quarts of Ludlow beer.
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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.
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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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Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.
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When the journey's over/There'll be time enough to sleep.
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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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Do 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.
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You 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.
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The 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.
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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.
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The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
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That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
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Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking Spins the heavy world around.
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All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
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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.
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Therefore, since the world has still Much good, but much less good than ill
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In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
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I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
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