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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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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
Tried
Saturated
Kill
Ordered
Died
Passage
Based
Captured
Mercenary
Belief
Passages
Poisons
Body
Poison
Ancients
Great
Vain
Injure
None
Romans

More quotes by 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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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.
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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The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.
A. E. Housman
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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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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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'Tis spring come out to ramble The hilly brakes around, For under thorn and bramble About the hollow ground The primroses are found. And there's the windflower chilly With all the winds at play, And there's the Lenten lily That has not long to stay And dies on Easter day.
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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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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Ten thousand times I've done my best and all's to do again.
A. E. Housman
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The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
A. E. Housman
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Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.
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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This is for all ill-treated fellows Unborn and unbegot, For them to read when they're in trouble And I am not.
A. E. Housman
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Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure.
A. E. Housman
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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.
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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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
A. E. Housman
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Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.
A. E. Housman
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Stone, steel, dominions pass, Faith too, no wonder So leave alone the grass That I am under.
A. E. Housman