A.E. Housman: Trending quotes (page 2)

From a list of insults drafted by A E Housman, and posthumously published in Laurence Housman's A. E. H. (1937) pp. 89-90. The name was left blank in the original, but was intended to be filled in and used when a suitable subject should turn up.

Nature

“Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By pools I used to know.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 52, st. 1.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“My heart always warms to people who do not come to see me, especially Americans, to whom it seems to be more of an effort.”

A.E. Housman

"Letter to Neilson Abeel" (October 4, 1935).

People , Effort , Heart

“A man who possesses common sense and the use of reason must not expect to learn from treatises or lectures on textual criticism anything that he could not, with leisure and industry, find out for himself. What the lectures and treatises can do for him is to save him time and trouble by presenting to him immediately considerations which would in any case occur to him sooner or later.”

A.E. Housman

"The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism", a lecture delivered on August 4, 1921

Sense , Learning , Time

“Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,
Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 48, st. 1.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Soul , Strong

“Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings
All desired and timely things.
All whom morning sends to roam,
Hesper loves to lead them home.
Home return who him behold,
Child to mother, sheep to fold,
Bird to nest from wandering wide:
Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.”

A.E. Housman

No. 24 ("Epithalamium"), st. 3.
Last Poems http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8lspm10.txt (1922)

Love , Home , Bird , Time

“I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.”

A.E. Housman

A remark made in conversation, according to Grant Richards Housman 1897-1936 (1942) p. 100.
Attributed

Sense

“And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 19 ("To an Athlete Dying Young"), st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Silence

“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.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 21, st. 7.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

People

“From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither; here am I.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 32.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Life

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

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 52, st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Soul

“Good-night; ensured release,
Imperishable peace,
Have these for yours,
While sea abides, and land,
And earth's foundations stand,
And heaven endures.”

A.E. Housman

No. 48 ("Parta Quies"), st. 1.
More Poems http://www.kalliope.org/vaerktoc.pl?vid=housman/1936 (1936)

Peace , Sea , Night

“Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
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

Additional Poems, No. 18, st. 1 (1937).

“It is supposed that there has been progress in the science of textual criticism, and the most frivolous pretender has learned to talk superciliously about "the old unscientific days". The old unscientific days are everlasting; they are here and now; they are renewed perennially by the ear which takes formulas in, and the tongue which gives them out again, and the mind which meanwhile is empty of reflexion and stuffed with self-complacency.”

A.E. Housman

"The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism", a lecture delivered on August 4, 1921

Learning , Science

“He stood, and heard the steeple
Sprinkle the quarters on the morning town.
One, two, three, four, to market-place and people
It tossed them down.

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.”

A.E. Housman

No. 15 ("Eight O'Clock").
Last Poems http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8lspm10.txt (1922)

People

“Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 2, st. 2-3.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Spring