A. E. Housman Art Quotations

With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.

Tomorrow, more's the pity, Away we both must hie, To air the ditty and to earth I.

Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.

But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts. And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts

Poems very seldom consist of poetry and nothing else; and pleasure can be derived also from their other ingredients. I am convinced that most readers, when they think they are admiring poetry, are deceived by inability to analyse their sensations, and that they are really admiring, not the poetry of the passage before them, but something else in it, which they like better than poetry.

Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.

Because I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked you, and I promised I'd throw the thought away. To put the world between us We parted stiff and dry: 'Farewell,' said you, 'forget me.' 'Fare well, I will,' said I. If e'er, where clover whitens The dead man's knoll, you pass, And no tall flower to meet you Starts in the trefoiled grass, Halt by the headstone shading The heart you have not stirred, And say the lad that loved you Was one that kept his word.

Into my heart an air that kills / From yon far country blows: / What are those blue remembered hills, / What spires, what farms are those?

Tomorrow, more's the pity, / Away we both must hie, To air the ditty / and to earth I.

His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

Could man be drunk for ever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning And lief lie down of nights. But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts.

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, `Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.' But I was one-and-twenty No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, `The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue.' And I am two-and-twenty And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

We now to peace and darkness And earth and thee restore Thy creature that thou madest And wilt cast forth no more.

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.

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.