Welcome to Litsy!

I sure had forgotten the pro-suicide poems! I know it's all Housman setting up characters and playing around, but definitely had not remembered that.

Honestly the one that still strikes me is “White in the moon the long road lies“, because of how it's used in The Dark is Rising. Otherwise... I can actually kinda take or leave this collection.

Did enjoy finally placing the “Mithridates, he died old“ Lord Peter quotes in Sayers' Strong Poison.

"I think I am in love with A. E. Housman,
Which puts me in a worse-than-usual fix.
No woman ever stood a chance with Housman
And he's been dead since 1936."
???

“ The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the marketplace;”
— To An Athlete Dying Young, A.E. Housman
My husband recited this from memory the other day.It was a HS poem from an English class.He went to a Jesuit HS in Tampa,FL,which emphasized classics.So my thoughtful son bought him this collection of Housman‘s poems.I had never encountered Housman Reading this I understand why his works appealed to those living during WWI.

I‘ve been slowly working through A.E. Housman‘s poetry collection, A Shropshire Lad, and am finishing it up this morning, which is kind of perfect since it‘s World Poetry Day! I loved A Shropshire Lad—it‘s written simply but with an underlying darkness of death and the beauty of a boy‘s memories of home.

I am five-and-forty so don't get me started! And I cannot find my A.E. Housman book anywhere, so here's the poem I was looking for in The Times anthology again.
#young #poetrymatters @LazyDays

#stars #poetrymatters
Lovely 💕

#twenty-one #novemberbythenumbers @JoeStalksBeck @Tiffy_Reads

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
`Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.'
But I was one-and-twenty
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
`The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.'
And I am two-and-twenty
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.