A.E. Housman, an appreciationof hi poetry

[Captain_Amazing]

He doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention anymore, and really he never wrote much poetry…only two books. But he’s just beautiful to read; funny and sad at the same time. Anyone else like Housman here?

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.

[Humble_Servant]

‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make, 5
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow. 10
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’

Why, if ’tis dancing you would be, 15
There’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse, 20
**And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man. **
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot 25
To see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
The mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where, 30
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain, 35
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet, 40
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

I highlighted the bit that amuses me.

Some 40 years ago, the sheet music on my Grandma’s piano was for an adaptation of “A Shropshire Lad.” Seems it was popular back in the day but has fallen out of favor. The inflexible rhythm/rhyme makes it seem pre-modern; but you’re right, I like it because it’s funny/true.

[NAF1138]

Housman is one of my favorite poets, I like his sense of humor. I will come back and add more later, mostly I just wanted to give this a bit of a bump before it died.

[pseudotriton_ruber_ruber]

If you haven’t already, read Tom Stoppard’s masterwork THE INVENTION OF LOVE (or better yet see a production–fat chance of that) which is a biography of Housman and nothing short of brilliant.

If you think he was a good poet, and he was, he’s far more brilliant as a Classicist–IMO he’s one of the unsung heroes of the art of translating Greek and Roman poetry, not only for his translations but for his principles of what a translator is trying to do. The Stoppard play goes into this, and much else, with a kind of magic.

Did I mention that I think the play is good?