A E Housman - The Scholar Poet

AE Housman pursued two parallel careers which he never allowed to infringe upon each other: scholar and poet. Professor of Latin at Cambridge University for much of his life (despite having failed his Classics finals at Oxford), he was a widely-respected Latin and Greek scholar, with a penetrating intellect and a hatred of careless scholarship with found expression in the scathing criticisms he wrote of less rigorous scholars. But he was also a poet, producing in A Shropshire Lad one of the most popular volumes of English verse ever written, which has never been out of print since its first publication in 1896. As a poet he was, as he acknowledged himself, more barren than most, producing just two collections of verse, A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems (pub. 1922); his brother Laurence however published two further volumes, More Poems and Additional Poems, from drafts which Housman left after his death in 1936.

His poetry is superb; suffused with death and the knowledge of mortality, the poems are couched in simple language but their cumulative effect is devastating. The few I have chosen below are merely representative - the entire text of A Shropshire Lad can be found online at the Bartleby Library. Many of the poems are about his homosexuality, which was a source of torment to him, and about the pain caused by the loss of a loved one: the great love of Housman's life was a friend he met at college, Moses Jackson, and a desolate note in his diary for Jan 7 1890 simply records "I heard he was married." Housman admitted that his emotional life had ceased at the age of 35, which may account for the scarcity of his output.

John Carey, writing in the Sunday Times recently, described the poems as "constantly balanc[ing] on the divide between stoicism and complaint...beneath the restraint there is another voice in the poems that grieves, curses and begs for pity." But he concludes with what I love best about Housman: "Equally real to today's readers is his liberation from the consolations of religion. His view of mankind is astringent in its courage and modernity. We are chance collections of atoms. At death we will disperse to the four winds. Others will think our thoughts and breathe the air we breathed. Our sense of distinctive selfhood is mere illusion." Uncompromising in this as he was in everything else, Housman faced the world head-on, and wrote some wonderful poetry while he was at it.

It's not all bleak; he wrote nonsense verse throughout his life, which can rival Dahl and Lear at its best and outdoes them in titles - who could resist a poem called "The Parallelogram or, Infant Optimism", or "Purple William or, The Liar's Doom" ? He was also a terrific letter-writer, and I've put in a few extracts from his letters below.

As usual, I'm not trying to rip anyone off or infringe copyright but simply make this corner of the Web a better place - please don't sue me!

LAST POEMS XL

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,

What tune the enchantress plays

In aftermaths of soft September

Or under blanching mays,

For she and I were long acquainted

And I knew all her ways.

On russet floors, by waters idle,

The pine lets fall its cone;

The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing

In leafy dells alone;

And traveller's joy beguiles in autumn

Hearts that have lost their own.

On acres of the seeded grasses

The changing burnish heaves;

Or marshalled under moons of harvest

Stand still all night the sheaves;

Or beeches strip in storms for winter

And stain the wind with leaves.

Possess, as I possessed a season,

The countries I resign,

Where over elmy plains the highway

Would mount the hills and shine,

And full of shade the pillared forest

Would murmur and be mine.

For nature, heartless, witless nature,

Will neither care nor know

What stranger's feet may find the meadow

And trespass there and go,

Nor ask amid the dews of morning

If they are mine or no.

A SHROPSHIRE LAD XII

When I watch the living meet,

And the moving pageant file

Warm and breathing through the street

Where I lodge a little while,

If the heats of hate and lust

In the house of flesh are strong,

Let me mind the house of dust

Where my sojourn shall be long.

In the nation that is not

Nothing stands that stood before;

There revenges are forgot

And the hater hates no more;

Lovers lying two and two

Ask not whom they sleep beside,

And the bridegroom all night through

Never turns him to the bride.

ASL XLIII (THE IMMORTAL PART)

When I meet the morning beam

Or lay me down at night to dream,

I hear my bones within me say,

"Another night, another day.

"When shall this slough of sense be cast,

This dust of thoughts be laid at last,

The man of flesh and soul be slain

And the man of bone remain?

"This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,

These thews that hustle us about,

This brain that fills the skull with schemes,

And its humming hive of dreams, -

"These today are proud in power

And lord it in their little hour:

The immortal bones obey control

Of dying flesh and dying soul.

"'Tis long till eve and morn are gone,

Slow the endless night comes on,

And late to fulness grows the birth

That shall last as long as earth.

"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,

Know you why you cannot rest?

'Tis that every mother's son

Travails with a skeleton.

"Lie down in the bed of dust;

Bear the fruit that bear you must;

Bring the eternal seed to light

And morn is all the same as night.

"Rest you so from trouble sore,

Fear the heat o' the sun no more,

Nor the snowing winter wild,

Now you labour not with child.

"Empty vessel, garment cast,

We that wore you long shall last.

- Another night, another day."

So my bones within me say.

Therefore they shall do my will

Today while I am master still,

And flesh and soul, now both are strong,

Shall hale the sullen slaves along,

Before this fire of sense decay,

This smoke of thought blow clean away,

And leave with ancient night alone

The steadfast and enduring bone.

LAST POEMS XI

Yonder see the morning blink

The sun is up, and up must I,

To wash and dress and eat and drink

And look at things and talk and think

And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed,

And what's to show for all my pain?

Let me lie abed and rest:

Ten thousand times I've done my best

And all's to do again.

LAST POEMS XII

The laws of God, the laws of man,

He may keep that will and can;

Not I: let God and man decree

Laws for themselves and not for me;

And if my ways are not as theirs

Let them mind their own affairs.

Their deeds I judge and much condemn,

Yet when did I make laws for them?

Please yourselves, say I, and they

Need only look the other way.

But no, they will not; they must still

Wrest their neighbour to their will,

And make me dance as they desire

With jail and gallows and hell-fire.

And how am I to face the odds

Of man's bedevilment and God's?

I, a stranger and afraid

In a world I never made.

They will be master, right or wrong;

Though both are foolish, both are strong.

And since, my soul, we cannot fly

To Saturn nor to Mercury,

Keep we must, if keep we can,

These foreign laws of God and man.

ASL XLVIII

Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,

Earth and high heaven are fixed of old and founded strong.

Think rather, - call to thought, if now you grieve a little,

The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.

Men loved unkindess then, but lightless in the quarry

I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn;

Sweat ran, and blood sprang out, and I was never sorry:

Then it was well with me, in days ere I was born.

Now, and I muse for why and never find the reason,

I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun.

Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season:

Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.

Ay, look: high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation;

All thoughts to rive the heart are here, and all are vain:

Horror and scorn and hate and fear and indignation -

Oh why did I awake? when shall I sleep again?

ADDITIONAL POEMS XVIII

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?

And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?

And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?

Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;

In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is;

Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair

For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.

Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid

To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;

But they've pulled the beggar's hat off for the world to see and stare,

And they're haling him to justice for the colour of his hair.

Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet

And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,

And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare

He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.

ADDITIONAL POEMS VII

He would not stay for me; and who can wonder?

He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.

I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder.

And went with half my life about my ways.

And on a lighter note...

PURPLE WILLIAM, OR, THE LIAR'S DOOM

The hideous hue which William is

Was not originally his:

So long as William told the truth

He was a usual-coloured youth.

He now is purple. One fine day

His tender father chanced to say

"What colour is a whelp, and why?"

"Purple" was William's false reply.

"Pooh" said his Pa. "You silly elf,

"It's no more purple than yourself.

"Dismiss the notion from your head."

"I, too, am purple" William said.

And he was purple. With a yell

His mother off the sofa fell

Exclaiming "William's purple! Oh!"

William replied "I told you so."

His parents, who could not support

The pungency of this retort,

Died with a simultaneous groan.

The purple orphan was alone.

to his brother Laurence 04.12.1896

"I am extremely anxious that you should have a happy Christmas, and as I have it in my power, - here goes. Last night at dinner I was sitting next to Rendall, Principal of University College Liverpool....He was interested to hear that you were my brother: he said that he had got Green Arras, and then he proceeded, 'I think it is the best volume by him that I have seen; the Shropshire Lad had a pretty cover.'

I remain

Your affectionate brother (what a thing is fraternal affection, that it should stand these tests!)

AE Housman.

PS After all, it was I who designed that pretty cover, and he did not say that the cover of Green Arras was pretty. (Nor is it.)

PPS I was just licking the envelope, when I thought of the following venomed dart: I had far, far rather that people should attribute my verses to you than yours to me."

to Grant Richards, his publisher, 29.06.1907

"My dear Richards

Pray who gave Mr E Thomas leave to print two of my inspired lays in his and your Pocket Book of Poems and Songs? I didn't, though he thanks me in the preface. Just the same thing happened in the case of Lucas' Open Road, issued by the same nefarious publisher. You must not treat my immortal works as quarries to be used at will by the various hacks whom you employ to compile anthologies....Mr Thomas thanks me for 'a poem', and prints two - which is the one he deosn't thank me for?

My temper, as you are aware, is perfectly angelic, so I remain yours sincerely

AE Housman."

to Grant Richards, 02.07.1907

"My dear Richards

Thanks for your letter. What you have got in your head is the fact that I allow composers to set my words to music without any restriction. I never hear the music, so I do not suffer; but that is a very different thing from being included in an anthology with WE Henley or Walter de la Mare.

I did not remonstrate about The Open Road : I was speechless with surprise and indignation.

Yours sincerely

AE Housman."

to Grant Richards, 05.12.1916

"I do not make any particular complaint about your doubling the price of my book, but of course it diminishes the sale and therefore diminishes the chances of the advertisement to which I am always looking forward: a soldier is to receive a bullet in the breast, and it is to be turned aside from his heart by a copy of A Shropshire Lad which he is carrying there. Hitherto it is only the Bible that has perfomed this trick."

to his friend Percy Withers, 12.06.1922

"The photograph is not quite true to my own notion of my gentleness and sweetness of nature, but neither perhaps is my external appearance."

Now who couldn't love a man who could write like that?? 8)

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