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Around the Year in 52 Books 2020: A book that can be read in a day.
When I was four-and-twentyI heard a wise man say,'Give crowns and pounds and guineasBut not your heart away;Give pearls away and rubiesBut keep your fancy free.'But I was four-and-twenty,No use to talk to me. When I was four-and-twentyI heard him say again,'The heart out of the bosomWas never given in vain;'Tis paid with sighs a plentyAnd sold for endless rue.'And I am three-and-fifty,And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
A. E Housman is underrated as a poet and his negligence within the poetic cannon probably has to do with his lack of output. As an intellectual, he focused more on scholarly translations which gave his writing an archaic feel at times. In this collection, there is a cycle of poems all covering similar themes and ideas, but they strike you with their poignancy and uniqueness. His metaphors are very distinctive and he makes the most of his extensive vocabulary. A good example is his use of the wor...
Really loved the pessimism and descant of his poetry. Yonder see the morning blink: The sun is up, and up must I, To wash and dress and eat and drink And look at things and talk and think And work, and God knows why. Oh often have I washed and dressed And what's to show for all my pain? Let me lie abed and rest: Ten thousand times I've done my best And all's to do again.
Umm, poetic?I felt like I was a transcendentalist or esoteric, reading these. They were really out there in the ether someimes.But, meh, some of it was a bit ho-hum and not too colorful.
COULD man be drunk for ever With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning And lief lie down of nights. But men at whiles are sober And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten Their hands upon their hearts. A.E. Housman
More great rhyming Stoicism and pessimism in an appealing package.
Oh hard is the bed they have made him, And common the blanket and cheap; But there he will lie as they laid him: Where else could you trust him to sleep? To sleep when the bugle is crying And cravens have heard and are brave, When mothers and sweethearts are sighing And lads are in love with the grave. Oh dark is the chamber and lonely, And lights and companions depart; But lief will he lose them and only Behold the desire of his heart. And low is the roof, but it covers A sleeper content to re
"To An Athlete Dying Young..."
Verse rendering of the same theme (and more) as in "Ender's Game": every level gets harder, and there is no one to help. Excerpt from Housman: "Oh often have I washed and dressed / And what's to show for all my pain? / Let me lie abed and rest: / Ten thousand times I've done my best / And all's to do again." God be thanked, that's not life's Full story, but it seems all-to-true of our experience of life, at times.
