The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

8.141 A. E. Housman 1859-1936
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.
‘Collected Poems’ (1939) ‘Additional Poems’ no. 18
Mud’s sister, not himself, adorns my legs.
‘Fragment of a Greek Tragedy’ (‘Bromsgrovian’ vol. 2, no. 5, 1883) in ‘Alfred Edward Housman’, the
Housman Memorial Supplement of the Bromsgrovian (1936)
The Grizzly Bear is huge and wild;
He has devoured the infant child.
The infant child is not aware
He has been eaten by the bear.
‘Infant Innocence’ (1938)
Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.
‘Last Poems’ (1922) no. 9
May will be fine next year as like as not:
Oh, ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.
‘Last Poems’ (1922) no. 9
The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
‘Last Poems’ (1922) no. 9
But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.
‘Last Poems’ (1922) no. 10
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.
‘Last Poems’ (1922) no. 12
The candles burn their sockets,
The blinds let through the day,
The young man feels his pockets
And wonders what’s to pay.
‘Last Poems’ (1922) no. 21
These, in the day when heaven was falling,