Loitering With A Vacant Eye

      I'm feeling rather like a disc jockey today, fielding a request from RK to share some of the poems of A. E. Housman, but I don't mind doing requests, as they say, as long as I like the tunes. Housman is one of those poets that everyone should read in their late teens, particularly the poems that comprise A Shropshire Lad, all of which can be read online here. The trick with Housman, I think, is his deceptive simplicity: as with Robert Frost, it's tempting to reduce his writing to a kind of folksy pastorality, but to do so is to undermine the depth of his writing -- and, in fact, the intricacy of his poetic technique, much of which rests on a stern (some might say rigid) obedience to iambic rhythms. Some have accused Housman of being "metronomic," tick tocking his way through his verse, and while there's a sense that Flicka and Mr. Ed could have stamped out the stresses, that says more of our tendency toward relatively unmeasured speech patterns. Housman's best read, more often than not, with a musical wistfulness, the kind of wistfulness that isn't as sad as it seems, but just outside of contentment. Read Housman, one might say, with a young man's heart, a drink in one hand, and a thought of another in the back of your mind-- or, in Housman's phrase, read him "loitering with a vacant eye."

When I was one-and-twenty 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.

Could man be drunk forever Could man be drunk for ever       With liquor, love, or fights, Lief should I rouse at morning       And lief lie down at nights. But men at whiles are sober       And think by fits and starts, And if they think, they fasten       Their hands upon their hearts.

Tell me not here, it needs not saying 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. Oh, when I was in love with you 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, And miles around they ’ll say that I    Am quite myself again.

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, 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, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow. From far, from eve and morning FROM far, from eve and morning    And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me    Blew hither: here am I. Now—for a breath I tarry    Nor yet disperse apart— Take my hand quick and tell me,    What have you in your heart. Speak now, and I will answer;    How shall I help you, say; Ere to the wind’s twelve quarters    I take my endless way. With rue my heart is laden WITH rue my heart is laden    For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipt maiden    And many a lightfoot lad. By brooks too broad for leaping    The lightfoot boys are laid; The rose-lipt girls are sleeping    In fields where roses fade.

      It's worth taking a good look, too, among Housman's Last Poems all of which can be found here. His Preface to the poems may well be one of the saddest things I've ever read.