Status Updates From A Shropshire Lad and Other ...

I'm a slow reader and still at the introduction, but Housman seemed like such an interesting guy.

“I received from America a request that I would define poetry. I replied that I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat, but that I thought we both recognized the object by the symptoms which it provokes in us.”

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.

65%
If death and time are stronger
A love may yet be strong;
The world will last for longer,
But this will last for long

68%
But oh, my two troubles they reave me of rest,
The brains in my head and the heart in my breast

84%
Poetry is not the thing said but a way of saying it.

..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.

38%
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
.
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.

53%
Hope lies to mortals
And most believe her,
But man’s deceiver
Was never mine.

24%
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;

28%
Oh ’tis jesting, dancing, drinking
Spins the heavy world around.
If young hearts were not so clever,
Oh, they would be young for ever:
Think no more; ’tis only thinking
Lays lads underground.

31%
In all the endless road you tread
There’s nothing but the night.

33%
Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,

11%
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

14%
Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.

21%
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.

23%
And friends abroad must bear in mind
Friends at home they leave behind.