Alfred Edward Housman Poems

If truth in hearts that perish
Could move the powers on high,
I think the love I bear you
Should make you not to die.
...

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
Or under blanching mays,
...

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
And beacons burn again.
...

I hoed and trenched and weeded,
And took the flowers to fair:
I brought them home unheeded;
The hue was not the wear.
...

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

If by chance your eye offend you,
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
'Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
And many a balsam grows on ground.
...

In my own shire, if I was sad,
Homely comforters I had:
The earth, because my heart was sore,
Sorrowed for the son she bore;
...

The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
...

Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
...

Ho, everyone that thirsteth
And hath the price to give,
Come to the stolen waters,
Drink and your soul shall live.
...