Alfred Edward Housman

The bells they sound on Bredon And still the steeples hum. "Come all to church, good people," — Oh, noisy bells, be dumb; I hear you, I will come.

And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.

To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high, we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town.

Oh, when I was in love with you Then I was clean and brave, And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave. And now the fancy passes by And nothing will remain,

His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away.

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."

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away."

Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.

Clay lies still, but blood's a rover; Breath's a ware that will not keep. Up, lad: when the journey's over There'll be time enough to sleep.

Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room,

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough.

Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.

The house of delusions is cheap to build, but draughty to live in, and ready at any instant to fall.

The most important truth which has ever been uttered, and the greatest discovery ever made in the moral world.