A. E. Housman

There, by the starlit fences The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering weirs.

Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed.

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.

Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.

And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.

Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking_x000D_ _x000D_ Spins the heavy world around.

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.

June suns, you cannot store them To warm the winter's cold, The lad that hopes for heaven Shall fill his mouth with mould.

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

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be, There's brisker pipes than poetry. Say, for what were hop-yards meant, Or why was Burton built on Trent? Oh many a peer of England brews Livelier liquor than the Muse, And malt does more than Milton can To justify God's ways to man. Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink For fellows whom it hurts to think: Look into the pewter pot To see the world as the world's not.

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.

In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning.

Strapped, noosed, nighing his hour, He stood and counted them and cursed his luck; And then the clock collected in the tower Its strength, and struck.

'Tis spring; come out to ramble_x000D_ _x000D_ The hilly brakes around,_x000D_ _x000D_ For under thorn and bramble_x000D_ _x000D_ About the hollow ground_x000D_ _x000D_ The primroses are found._x000D_ _x000D_ And there's the windflower chilly_x000D_ _x000D_ With all the winds at play,_x000D_ _x000D_ And there's the Lenten lily_x000D_ _x000D_ That has not long to stay_x000D_ _x000D_ And dies on Easter day.

They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man's.

When the journey's over/There'll be time enough to sleep.

White in the moon the long road lies.

The bells they sound on Bredon, And still the steeples hum. "Come all to church, good people"- Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; I hear you, I will come.

I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.

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.

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.