Quotes from book
A Shropshire Lad

A Shropshire Lad

A Shropshire Lad is a collection of sixty-three poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman, published in 1896. After a slow beginning, it rapidly grew in popularity, particularly among young readers. Composers began setting the poems to music less than ten years after their first appearance. Many parodies have also been written that satirise Housman's themes and stylistic characteristics.

“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.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 13, st. 2.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 62, st. 3.
Source: A Shropshire Lad (1896)

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

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 40.
Source: A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“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.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

Source: A Shropshire Lad

“They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 23, st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“Oh, when I was in love with you
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

And now the fancy passes by
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that I
Am quite myself again.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 18.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 2, st. 1.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“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.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 4 ("Reveille"), st. 6.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

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

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 14, st. 3.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge,
Gold that I never see;
Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge
That will not shower on me.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 39, st. 3.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

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

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 12, st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“But from my grave across my brow
Plays no wind of healing now,
And fire and ice within me fight
Beneath the suffocating night.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 30, st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“Now hollow fires burn out to black,
And lights are guttering low:
Square your shoulders, lift your pack,
And leave your friends and go.

Oh never fear, man, nought's to dread,
Look not to left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There's nothing but the night.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 60.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

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