Introduction, by Nick Laird--A Shropshire LadLast Poems--I. The West--II. 'As I gird on for fighting . . .'--III. 'Her strong enchantments failing . . .'--IV. Illic Jacet--V. Grenadier--VI. Lancer--VII. 'In valleys green and still . . .'--VIII. 'Soldier from the wars returning . . .'--IX. 'The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers . . .'--X. 'Could man be drunk for ever . . .'--XI. 'Yonder see the morning blink . . .'--XII. 'The laws of God, the laws of man . . .'--XIII. The Deserter--XI...

My favourite ever book of poems. However, there are actually four books of poems collected in this one volume and they are not of equal quality. In fact the quality declines. This is because the final two books were posthumous collections put together by Housman's brother and it is highly unlikely that Housman himself would have approved of this. Nonetheless the strength of the first two books A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems is such that it doesn't matter that the posthumous collections are weak...

Finished this morning, Yay! Ah, that Housman.I picked up this book in a used bookstore because of his best poem, simply titled "Poem II" in A Shropshire Lad, which I was familiar with as it is a beautiful poem and someone I admired, Dr. Wolfe Blotzer, recited it once in my presence from memory and I chimed in at the last stanza:"Loveliest of trees, the cherry nowIs hung with bloom along the bough,And stands about the woodland rideWearing white for EastertideNow, of my threescore and ten,Twenty w...

One of my favorites:XVIHow clear, how lovely brightHow beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play;How heaven laughs out with gleeWhere, like a bird set free,Up from the eastern sea Soars the delightful day.To-day I shall be strong,No more shall yield to wrong, Shall squander life no more;Days lost, I know not how,I shall retrieve them now;Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before.Ensanguining the skiesHow heavily it dies Into the west away;Past touch and sight and soundNot further to be f...

To an Athlete Dying YoungThe time you won your town the raceWe chaired you through the market-place;Man and boy stood cheering by,And home we brought you shoulder-high.Today, the road all runners come,Shoulder-high we bring you home,And set you at your threshold down,Townsman of a stiller town.This is one of my favorite poems in this collection. I like it so much that I can't see how any lover of poetry could fail to respond to it.

I will likely remember this book for a number of reasons, none of which align. It's the book I read instead of watching the presidential address regarding the 2019 government shutdown/wall funding, because as a federal contractor facing our household losing half its income, I'm too enraged to watch such drivel. This book, its poems, was all the more pleasurable and stimulating. It's also the book I received from a dear friend who loves it so much that it makes me love it too. Her post its indica...

It shows my ignorance of Housman that until I started reading this I thought that A Shropshire Lad was one lengthy poem rather than a collection of much shorter ballads. My favourite poem was the second (Loveliest of trees, the cherry now/Is hung with bloom along the bough). Shortly after this Housman's unvarying style began to weary somewhat, though the greater variety in his subject matter did keep my interest up. His poems favouring suicide now seem in very poor taste, but I suppose were of h...

I have loved, do love and shall love Housman. Way out of fashion, like my other young love Swinburne. I spent more time with them than with those thought better poets, early in life, and have no regrets. It's true the alt sexuality helped in both cases. Perhaps I can liken Housman to the lyrics of The Smiths. I think I can.

A perfect collection of AEH's poems. I still have the copy my sister bought for me 25 years ago.

Wonderful lyrical poetry which has so many memorable lines. These are often very dark with an underlying theme of tragedy and death. Housman's sexuality underlies much of his verse but setting this aside, the poems are great literature. I might allow that I know the country quite well, having lived there for 10 years and this certainly adds to the joy of reading his collection. I have not entered a finish date because I never will finish the book.

This is a fine collection of Housman’s poems. Housman is both musical and sad. Like the great, modern, sad song-writers, Housman’s poems put the reader into a state of appreciative melancholy. My 3 favorites in the collection are representative of this. All in all, highly recommended.From “Last Poems – IX”Iniquity it is; but pass the can. My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;Our only portion is the estate of man: We want the moon, but we shall get no more. “Additional Poems – V”Here are the...

He words my thoughts far better than I can think them.

Unrequited love and youthful death are the author's recurrent themes. Always forthright and devoid of the esoteric and modernistic qualities of more revered poets, Housman's work, though imbued with a pronounced melancholy, is never strident or sanctimonious. It is through the symmetry of theme that Housman achieves the solemnity which lends these justly celebrated poems their stature.I feel that any discussion of A. E. Housman's poetry should first acknowledge that he was never a poet in the sa...

https://youtu.be/BHoAQW_DBI4?t=158As an adolescent, I could not see the value of my mother teaching me to recite verses of the Quran in Classical Arabic. Like the audience and other panelists, I felt it was a waste of time, with no real-world application. Only in recent years have I seen the value of my mother's effort.I would have avoided poetry for far too long had it not been for Peter Hitchens. Thanks to this segment, which I had watched years prior, I gave Chinese Poetry as translated by Wa...

Forgive the format but I couldn't resist:I read this collection Whilst suffering the heatOf another year's vacationAnd found the writer neat. While maudlin and morose,Houseman's depiction of youthful loveAs naive, beautiful and verboseFit my memories of it like a glove.

favorite poemUntitled by A.E. HousmanI to my perilsOf cheat and charmer Came clad in armourBy stars benign.Hope lies to mortalsAnd most believe her,But man’s deceiverWas never mine.The thoughts of othersWere light and fleeting,Of lovers’ meeting Or luck or fame. Mine were of trouble,And mine were steady,So I was readyWhen trouble came.

Having just read Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, a play based on the life of A.E. Housman, I decided to read his poems. The most famous collection, of course, is A Shropshire Lad; the other parts are titled, imaginatively, Last Poems, More Poems and Additional Poems. I have to admit, Housman will not ever be my favorite poet. The poems are all rather the same, short poems about young men who died, some as soldiers, some by suicide, some hanged, etc. and are lying about under the ground bei...

Enjoyable but the best part is his essay about poetry, absolutely british and erudite!

Yes, I know. How dreadfully unfashionable! And yet... I've loved Housman's poetry since high school. I love his pastiches of both Sappho and the Greek Anthology, I love the clear-eyed and Stoic sense of fate and loss, I love the crisp precision. This is a volume I've had on my shelves since I was sixteen--- replaced over and over. And it'll always be a favourite.

Marvellous. Not all poems in here are as good as each other—this is to be expected in a near exhaustive collection—but when Housman writes well, he writes well indeed. There is a faint melancholy that fills his poetry, but which is rarely overstated. His nostalgic poems on loss in war are often the best.