A.E. Housman Quotes

“Iniquity it is; but pass the can. My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;Our only portion is the estate of man: We want the moon, but we shall get no more. (Last Poems, IX)”

“I ran a constant low fever waiting for my ride to come and take me away to something finer. I lay in bed at night, watching the red beacon on top of the water tower, a clear signal to me of the beauty and mystery of a life that waited for me far away, and thought of Housman's poem,"Loveliest of trees, the cherry nowIs hung with bloom upon the bough.It stands among the woodland ride,Wearing white for Eastertide.Now, of my three-score years and ten,Twenty will not come again..."and would have run away to where people would appreciate me, had I known of such a place, had I thought my parents would understand. But if I had said, "Along the woodland I must go to see the cherry hung with snow," they would have said, "Oh,no, you don't. You're going to stay right here and finish up what I told you to do three hours ago. Besides, those aren't cherry trees, those are crab apples.”

“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.”

“If I loved all the world as I do you, I shouldn't write books to it: I should only write letters to it, and that would be only a clumsy stage on the way to entire telepathy.”

“Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out . but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.”

“I a stranger and afraid in a world I never made.”

“Clay lies still but blood's a rover Breath's a ware that will not keep. Up lad: when the journey's over There'll be time enough to sleep.”

“Clay lies still but blood's a rover Breath's a ware that will not keep Up lad when the journey's over There'll be time enough to sleep.”

“The loveliest of trees the cherry now is hung with bloom along the bough and stands about the woodland ride wearing white for Eastertide.”

“And how am I to face the odds of man's bedevilment and God's? I a stranger and afraid in a world I never made.”