E. Housman
E. Housman
lonely hero men
Housman is one of my heroes and always has been. He was a detestable and miserable man. Arrogant, unspeakably lonely, cruel, and so on, but and absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and a great scholar.
life thinking men
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
heart rose rue
With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipped maiden And many a lightfoot lad.
right-words
I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
long painful moments
A moment's thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.
art thinking poetry
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.
religious appreciated poetry-is
Good religious poetry... is likely to be most justly appreciated and most discriminately relished by the undevout.
heart sea feet
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.
thinking brain pudding
To be a textual critic requires aptitude for thinking and willingness to think; and though it also requires other things, those things are supplements and cannot be substitutes. Knowledge is good, method is good, but one thing beyond all others is necessary; and that is to have a head, not a pumpkin, on your shoulders and brains, not pudding, in your head.
humorous hands world
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.
drinking men way
To justify God's ways to man.
wind snow saplings
On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;The wind it plies the saplings double, And thick on Severn snow the leaves.
asylums cambridge
I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.
poison body belief
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.