Poetry Is Not The Thing Said, But

To Be A Textual Critic Requires Aptitude For Thinking And Willingness To Think; And Though It Also Requires Other Things, Those Things Are Supplements And Cannot Be Substitutes. Knowledge Is Good, Method Is Good, But One Thing Beyond All Others Is Necessary; And That Is To Have A Head, Not A Pumpkin, On Your Shoulders And Brains, Not Pudding, In Your Head.

How Clear, How Lovely Bright, How Beautiful To Sight Those Beams Of Morning Play; How Heaven Laughs Out With Glee Where, 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 Skies How Heavily It Dies Into The West Away; Past Touch And Sight And Sound Not Further To Be Found, How Hopeless Under Ground Falls The Remorseful Day.

The House Of Delusions Is Cheap To Build But Drafty To Live In.

Housman Is One Of My Heroes And Always Has Been. He Was A Detestable And Miserable Man. Arrogant, Unspeakably Lonely, Cruel, And So On, But And Absolutely Marvellous Minor Poet, I Think, And A Great Scholar.

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.