Alfred Edward Housman

''“Good creatures, do you love your lives
And have you ears for sense?
Here is a knife like other knives,
That cost me eighteen pence.

I need but stick it in my heart
And down will come the sky,
And earths foundations will depart
And all you folk will die.” ''

''“I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.” ''

''“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.”''

''“Existence is not itself a good thing, that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessaries: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life is no more than an elaborate furnishing and decoration of apartments for the reception of a guest who is never to come. Our business here is not to live, but to live happily.” ''

''“The stars have not dealt me the worst they could do:
My pleasures are plenty, my troubles are two.
But oh, my two troubles they reave me of rest,
The brains in my head and the heart in my breast.

Oh, grant me the ease that is granted so free,
The birthright of multitudes, give it to me,
That relish their victuals and rest on their bed
With flint in the bosom and guts in the head.”''

''“Stone, steel, dominions pass,
Faith too, no wonder;
So leave alone the grass
That I am under.” ''

''“June suns, you cannot store them
To warm the winters cold,
The lad that hopes for heaven
Shall fill his mouth with mould.” ''

''“Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is, and we were young.” ''

''“I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.”''

''“Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,
Know you why you cannot rest?
Tis that every mothers son
Travails with a skeleton.

Lie down in the bed of dust;
Bear the fruit that bear you must;
Bring the eternal seed to light,
And morn is all the same as night.” ''