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    Delphi Complete Works of A. E. Housman (Illustrated)
    Delphi Complete Works of A. E. Housman (Illustrated)
    Delphi Complete Works of A. E. Housman (Illustrated)
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    Delphi Complete Works of A. E. Housman (Illustrated)

    By A. E. Housman

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    About this ebook

    The Delphi Poets Series offers readers the works of literature's finest poets, with superior formatting. This volume presents the complete poetical works of A. E. Housman, with beautiful illustrations and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

    * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Housman's life and works
    * Concise introductions to the poetry and other works
    * Images of how the poetry books were first printed, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
    * A SHROPSHIRE LAD is presented with line numbers - ideal for students
    * Includes rare translations
    * Features Housman's comic verse - first time in digital print
    * Excellent formatting of the poems
    * Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry
    * Easily locate the poems you want to read
    * Housman's rare essays - including seminal critical works and the controversial ëDE AMICITIA', published many years later by the poet's brother, detailing Housman's homosexual love for Jackson
    * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres

    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

    CONTENTS:

    The Poetry Collections
    A SHROPSHIRE LAD
    LAST POEMS
    MORE POEMS
    ADDITIONAL POEMS
    NOTEBOOK FRAGMENTS
    TRANSLATIONS
    COMIC VERSE
    UNCOLLECTED POEMS

    The Poems
    LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
    LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

    The Essays
    SWINBURNE
    THE NAME AND NATURE OF POETRY
    THE APPLICATION OF THOUGHT TO TEXTUAL CRITICISM
    A. E. HOUSMAN'S ëDE AMICITIA' by Laurence Housman

    Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDelphi Classics
    Release dateAug 11, 2015
    ISBN9781909496644
    Delphi Complete Works of A. E. Housman (Illustrated)

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    • 5/5
      The definitive corpus of the poems of a master of meditative despair.
    • 4/5
      This has a short introduction to Housman's life and work.Also notes on the text,an index of first lines and an index of titled poems.Of course it gives ''A Shropshire Lad,but also' Last Poems','More Poems','Additional Poems' and 'Translations'. A good cheap introduction to this great poet.

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    Delphi Complete Works of A. E. Housman (Illustrated) - A. E. Housman

    A. E. HOUSMAN

    (1859-1936)

    Contents

    The Poetry Collections

    A SHROPSHIRE LAD

    LAST POEMS

    MORE POEMS

    ADDITIONAL POEMS

    NOTEBOOK FRAGMENTS

    TRANSLATIONS

    COMIC VERSE

    UNCOLLECTED POEMS

    The Poems

    LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

    LIST OF POEMS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

    The Essays

    SWINBURNE

    THE NAME AND NATURE OF POETRY

    THE APPLICATION OF THOUGHT TO TEXTUAL CRITICISM

    A. E. HOUSMAN’S ‘DE AMICITIA’ by Laurence Housman

    © Delphi Classics 2013

    Version 1

    A. E. HOUSMAN

    By Delphi Classics, 2013

    NOTE

    When reading poetry on an eReader, it is advisable to use a small font size, which will allow the lines of poetry to display correctly.

    The Poetry Collections

    A. E. Housman was born at Valley House in Fockbury, a hamlet on the outskirts of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire.

    Although Housman was born in Valley House, he moved at the age of three months to Perry Hall in the nearby town of Bromsgrove, where his father already had his solicitor’s chambers. Thus, Perry Hall was to become his childhood home.

    A plaque commemorating the poet’s residence at Perry Hall

    A SHROPSHIRE LAD

    A. E. Housman was born in Fockbury, on the outskirts of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, on 26th March 1859. Tragically, his mother died on his twelfth birthday, and his father, a country solicitor, later married an elder cousin in 1873. Housman was educated first at King Edward’s School, Birmingham, then Bromsgrove School, where he acquired a strong academic grounding and won prizes for his earliest attempts in poetry. In 1877, he won an open scholarship to St John’s College, Oxford, where he went on to study the classics.

    Although by nature reserved, perhaps in part due to his homosexuality, Housman formed strong friendships with two roommates, A. W. Pollard and Moses Jackson, the latter becoming the great love of Housman’s life, though Jackson did not return these feelings.  Housman obtained a first in classical Moderations in 1879, but his immersion in textual analysis, particularly with Propertius, led him to neglect ancient history and philosophy, which formed part of the Greats curriculum, resulting in him failing to obtain a degree. This failure left him with a deep sense of humiliation and a determination to prove his genius.

    After Oxford, Jackson found a position as a clerk in the Patent Office in London and arranged a similar post for Housman. They shared a flat with Jackson’s brother Adalbert until 1885, when Housman moved to lodgings of his own. Jackson moved to India in 1887 and when he returned briefly to England in 1889 to marry, Housman was not invited to the wedding and knew nothing about it until the couple had left the country.

    In the meantime, Housman continued pursuing classical studies independently and published scholarly articles on authors such as Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. He gradually acquired such a high reputation that in 1892 he was offered the professorship of Latin at University College London, which he accepted. The position at once offered Housman independent financial stability for the first time in his career.

    During his years in London, Housman completed what become known as his most famous collection of verses, A Shropshire Lad, a cycle of 63 poems. After several publishers had turned it down, he published the collection at his own expense in 1896. The volume surprised both his colleagues and students. At first the book sold slowly, but during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), Housman’s nostalgic depiction of rural life and the young men’s early deaths struck a chord with English readers and the book became a bestseller. Later, World War I further increased its popularity. Arthur Somervell and other composers were inspired by the folksong-like simplicity of the poems and famous musical settings were composed by George Butterworth and Ralph Vaughan Williams, with others by Ivor Gurney, John Ireland and Ernest John Moeran.

    Housman was surprised by the success of the collection due to the deep pessimism and obsession with death he conveys throughout the poems, with no regard given to the consolation of religion. Set in a half-imaginary pastoral Shropshire, the land of lost content, the poems explore the fleetingness of love and decay of youth in a spare, uncomplicated style that many critics of the time found outdated as compared to the exuberance of some Romantic poets. Housman himself acknowledged the influence of the songs of William Shakespeare, the Scottish Border ballads and the German Heinrich Heine, but the poet specifically denied any influence of Greek and Latin classics in his work.

    The main theme of A Shropshire Lad is mortality and the living of life to its fullest, as death can strike at any time, a theme echoed from Horace’s famous Ode ‘Carpe diem’ which the great classicist would have been more than familiar with. For example, in poem number IV, titled Reveille, the poet urges an unnamed lad to stop sleeping in the daylight, for ‘When the journey’s over/There’ll be time enough to sleep.’

    The collection is composed around a series of recurrent themes. It is not a connected narrative, though it can be read as the allegorical narrative of a journey of the heart. The ‘I’ of the poems, the authorial person, is in two cases named as Terence (VIII, LXII), the ‘Shropshire Lad’ of the title. However, the poems are not necessarily all in the same voice and the narrative suggested by the sequence of poems is a general framework, rather than a closely defined linear order.

    Moses Jackson, (1858-1923)

    Housman as a young man

    CONTENTS

    I.

    From Clee to heaven the beacon burns

    II.

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

    III.

    Leave your home behind, lad

    IV.

    Wake: the silver dusk returning

    V.

    Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers

    VI.

    When the lad for longing sighs

    VII.

    When smoke stood up from Ludlow

    VIII.

    Farewell to barn and stack and tree

    IX.

    On moonlit heath and lonesome bank

    X.

    The Sun at noon to higher air

    XI.

    On your midnight pallet lying

    XII.

    When I watch the living meet

    XIII.

    When I was one-and-twenty

    XIV.

    There pass the careless people

    XV.

    Look not in my eyes, for fear

    XVI.

    It nods and curtseys and recovers

    XVII.

    Twice a week the winter thorough

    XVIII.

    Oh, when I was in love with you

    XIX.

    The time you won your town the race

    XX.

    Oh fair enough are sky and plain

    XXI.

    In summertime on Bredon

    XXII.

    The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread

    XXIII.

    The lads in their hundreds

    XXIV.

    Say, lad, have you things to do

    XXV.

    This time of year a twelvemonth past

    XXVI.

    Along the field as we came by

    XXVII.

    Is my team ploughing

    XXVIII.

    High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam

    XXIX.

    ’Tis spring; come out to ramble

    XXX.

    Others, I am not the first

    XXXI.

    On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble

    XXXII.

    From far, from eve and morning

    XXXIII.

    If truth in hearts that perish

    XXXIV.

    Oh, sick I am to see you

    XXXV.

    On the idle hill of summer

    XXXVI.

    White in the moon the long road lies

    XXXVII.

    As through the wild green hills of Wyre

    XXXVIII.

    The winds out of the west land blow

    XXXIX.

    ’Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town

    XL.

    Into my heart on air that kills

    XLI.

    In my own shire, if I was sad

    XLII.

    Once in the wind of morning

    XLIII.

    When I meet the morning beam

    XLIV.

    Shot? so quick, so clean an ending

    XLV.

    If it chance your eye offend you

    XLVI.

    Bring, in this timeless grave to throw

    XLVII.

    Here the hangman stops his cart

    XLVIII.

    Be still, my soul, be still

    XLIX.

    Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly

    L.

    In valleys of springs of rivers

    LI.

    Loitering with a vacant eye

    LII.

    Far in a western brookland

    LIII.

    The lad came to the door at night

    LIV.

    With rue my heart is laden

    LV.

    Westward on the high-hilled plains

    LVI.

    Far I hear the bugle blow

    LVII.

    You smile upon your friend to-day

    LVIII.

    When I came last to Ludlow

    LIX.

    The star-filled seas are smooth to-night

    LX.

    Now hollow fires burn out to black

    LXI.

    The vane on Hughley steeple

    LXII.

    Terence, this is stupid stuff

    LXIII.

    I hoed and trenched and weeded

    The first edition

    The original title page

    Housman had been educated by governesses at home until the age of eleven, when he entered the Bromsgrove School.

    I.

    From Clee to heaven the beacon burns

    1887

    FROM Clee to heaven the beacon burns,

      The shires have seen it plain,

    From north and south the sign returns

      And beacons burn again.

    Look left, look right, the hills are bright,   5

      The dales are light between,

    Because ’tis fifty years to-night

      That God has saved the Queen.

    Now, when the flame they watch not towers

      About the soil they trod,   10

    Lads, we ‘ll remember friends of ours

      Who shared the work with God.

    To skies that knit their heartstrings right,

      To fields that bred them brave,

    The saviours come not home to-night   15

      Themselves they could not save.

    It dawns in Asia, tombstones show

      And Shropshire names are read;

    And the Nile spills his overflow

      Beside the Severn’s dead.   20

    We pledge in peace by farm and town

      The Queen they served in war,

    And fire the beacons up and down

      The land they perished for.

    ‘God save the Queen’ we living sing,   25

      From height to height ’tis heard;

    And with the rest your voices ring,

      Lads of the Fifty-third.

    Oh, God will save her, fear you not:

      Be you the men you ‘ve been,   30

    Get you the sons your fathers got,

      And God will save the Queen.

    II.

    Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

    LOVELIEST of trees, the cherry now

    Is hung with bloom along the bough,

    And stands about the woodland ride

    Wearing white for Eastertide.

    Now, of my threescore years and ten,   5

    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,   10

    About the woodlands I will go

    To see the cherry hung with snow.

    III.

    Leave your home behind, lad

    The Recruit

    LEAVE your home behind, lad,

      And reach your friends your hand,

    And go, and luck go with you

      While Ludlow tower shall stand.

    Oh, come you home of Sunday   5

      When Ludlow streets are still

    And Ludlow bells are calling

      To farm and lane and mill,

    Or come you home of Monday

      When Ludlow market hums   10

    And Ludlow chimes are playing

      ‘The conquering hero comes,’

    Come you home a hero,

      Or come not home at all,

    The lads you leave will mind you   15

      Till Ludlow tower shall fall.

    And you will list the bugle

      That blows in lands of morn,

    And make the foes of England

      Be sorry you were born.   20

    And you till trump of doomsday

      On lands of morn may lie,

    And make the hearts of comrades

      Be heavy where you die.

    Leave your home behind you,   25

      Your friends by field and town:

    Oh, town and field will mind you

      Till Ludlow tower is down.

    IV.

    Wake: the silver dusk returning

    Reveille

    WAKE: the silver dusk returning

      Up the beach of darkness brims,

    And the ship of sunrise burning

      Strands upon the eastern rims.

    Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,   5

      Trampled to the floor it spanned,

    And the tent of night in tatters

      Straws the sky-pavilioned land.

    Up, lad, up, ’tis late for lying:

      Hear the drums of morning play;   10

    Hark, the empty highways crying

      ‘Who ‘ll beyond the hills away?’

    Towns and countries woo together,

      Forelands beacon, belfries call;

    Never lad that trod on leather   15

      Lived to feast his heart with all.

    Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber

      Sunlit pallets never thrive;

    Morns abed and daylight slumber

      Were not meant for man alive.   20

    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.

    V.

    Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers

    OH see how thick the goldcup flowers

      Are lying in field and lane,

    With dandelions to tell the hours

      That never are told again.

    Oh may I squire you round the meads   5

      And pick you posies gay?

    — ‘Twill do no harm to take my arm.

      ‘You may, young man, you may.’

    Ah, spring was sent for lass and lad,

      ’Tis now the blood runs gold,   10

    And man and maid had best be glad

      Before the world is old.

    What flowers to-day may flower to-morrow,

      But never as good as new.

     — Suppose I wound my arm right round — 15

      ‘’Tis true, young man, ’tis true.’

    Some lads there are, ’tis shame to say,

      That only court to thieve,

    And once they bear the bloom away

      ’Tis little enough they leave.   20

    Then keep your heart for men like me

      And safe from trustless chaps.

    My love is true and all for you.

      ‘Perhaps, young man, perhaps.’

    Oh, look in my eyes then, can you doubt?   25

     — Why, ’tis a mile from town.

    How green the grass is all about!

      We might as well sit down.

     — Ah, life, what is it but a flower?

      Why must true lovers sigh?   30

    Be kind, have pity, my own, my pretty, —

      ‘Good-bye, young man, good-bye.’

    VI.

    When the lad for longing sighs

    WHEN the lad for longing sighs,

      Mute and dull of cheer and pale,

    If at death’s own door he lies,

      Maiden, you can heal his ail.

    Lovers’ ills are all to buy:   5

      The wan look, the hollow tone,

    The hung head, the sunken eye,

      You can have them for your own.

    Buy them, buy them: eve and morn

      Lovers’ ills are all to sell.   10

    Then you can lie down forlorn;

      But the lover will be well.

    VII.

    When smoke stood up from Ludlow

    WHEN smoke stood up from Ludlow,

      And mist blew off from Teme,

    And blithe afield to ploughing

      Against the morning beam

    I strode beside my team,   5

    The blackbird in the coppice

      Looked out to see me stride,

    And hearkened as I whistled

      The trampling team beside,

      And fluted and replied:   10

    ‘Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;

      What use to rise and rise?

    Rise man a thousand mornings

      Yet down at last he lies,

      And then the man is wise.’   15

    I heard the tune he sang me,

      And spied his yellow bill;

    I picked a stone and aimed it

      And threw it with a will:

      Then the bird was still.   20

    Then my soul within me

      Took up the blackbird’s strain,

    And still beside the horses

      Along the dewy lane

      It sang the song again:   25

    ‘Lie down, lie down, young yeoman;

      The sun moves always west;

    The road one treads to labour

      Will lead one home to rest,

      And that will be the best.’   30

    VIII.

    Farewell to barn and stack and tree

    ‘FAREWELL to barn and stack and tree,

      Farewell to Severn shore.

    Terence, look your last at me,

      For I come home no more.

    ‘The sun burns on the half-mown hill,   5

      By now the blood is dried;

    And Maurice amongst the hay lies still

      And my knife is in his side.

    ‘My mother thinks us long away;

      ’Tis time the field were mown.   10

    She had two sons at rising day,

      To-night she ‘ll be alone.

    ‘And here ‘s a bloody hand to shake,

      And oh, man, here ‘s good-bye;

    We ‘ll sweat no more on scythe and rake,   15

      My bloody hands and I.

    ‘I wish you strength to bring you pride,

      And a love to keep you clean,

    And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,

      At racing on the green.   20

    ‘Long for me the rick will wait,

      And long will wait the fold,

    And long will stand the empty plate,

      And dinner will be cold.’

    IX.

    On moonlit heath and lonesome bank

    ON moonlit heath and lonesome bank

      The sheep beside me graze;

    And yon the gallows used to clank

      Fast by the four cross ways.

    A careless shepherd once would keep   5

      The flocks by moonlight there,

    And high amongst the glimmering sheep

      The dead man stood on air.

    They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:

      The whistles blow forlorn,   10

    And trains all night groan on the rail

      To men that die at morn.

    There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,

      Or wakes, as may betide,

    A better lad, if things

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