The Mortal Sickness Of A Mind Too

Now Hollow Fires Burn Out To Black, And Lights Are Guttering Low: Square Your Shoulders, Lift Your Pack And Leave Your Friends And Go.

Good Night; Ensured Release, Imperishable Peace, Have These For Yours. * While Sky And Sea And Land And Earth's Foundations Stand And Heaven Endures. *these Three Lines Are On The Tablet Over Housman's Grave In The Parish Church At Ludlow, Shropshire, England

Even When Poetry Has A Meaning, As It Usually Has, It May Be Inadvisable To Draw It Out. Perfect Understanding Will Sometimes Almost Extinguish Pleasure.

Poems Very Seldom Consist Of Poetry And Nothing Else; And Pleasure Can Be Derived Also From Their Other Ingredients. I Am Convinced That Most Readers, When They Think They Are Admiring Poetry, Are Deceived By Inability To Analyse Their Sensations, And That They Are Really Admiring, Not The Poetry Of The Passage Before Them, But Something Else In It, Which They Like Better Than Poetry.

Strapped, Noosed, Nighing His Hour, He Stood And Counted Them And Cursed His Luck; And Then The Clock Collected In The Tower Its Strength, And Struck.