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I think that to transfuse emotion - not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader's sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer - is the peculiar function of poetry.

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
Poetry
Writer
Vibration
Emotion
Corresponding
Sense
Transmit
Felt
Vibrations
Thought
Peculiar
Think
Function
Thinking
Reader

More quotes by A. E. Housman

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Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
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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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Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.
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The fairies break their dances And leave the printed lawn.
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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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I sought them far and found them, The sure, the straight, the brave, The hearts I lost my own to, The souls I could not save They braced their belts about them, They crossed in ships the sea, They sought and found six feet of ground, And there they died for me.
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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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All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
A. E. Housman
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The mortal sickness of a mind too unhappy to be kind.
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To justify God's ways to man.
A. E. Housman
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White in the moon the long road lies.
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
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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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In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.
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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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.
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
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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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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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But if you ever come to a road where danger Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share. Be good to the lad who loves you true, And the soul that was born to die for you And whistle and I'll be there.
A. E. Housman