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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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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
Black
Burn
Fires
Light
Lifts
Pack
Shoulders
Packs
Lows
Hollow
Friendship
Square
Leave
Squares
Fire
Lift
Friends
Lights

More quotes by A. E. Housman

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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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The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
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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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Poetry is not the thing said, but the way of saying it.
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I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
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He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder, And went with half my life about my ways.
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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.
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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.
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Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
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I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
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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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Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act.
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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.
A. E. Housman
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Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings All desired and timely things. All whom morning sends to roam, Hesper loves to lead them home. Home return who him behold, Child to mother, sheep to fold, Bird to nest from wandering wide: Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.
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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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The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
A. E. Housman
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On Wenlock Edge the wood's in troubleHis forest fleece the Wrekin heavesThe wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
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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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There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.
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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