In times of war, much rhetoric is bandied about urging remembrance of the sacrifices of the brave soldiers fighting to protect liberty and democracy. In The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman, we see the political opposite of rhetoric: true emotion.
With that sort of introduction, one might think Housman a contemporary poet reacting to the multitude of wars abounding around the world. But Housman is a poet of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Even 100 years later, his poems have a relevance you can’t shake.
A large section of The Collected Poems comprise selections from Housman’s first collection, A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896. Many of the poems address a sort of “everyman” soldier of the day. But it is obvious that Housman is addressing more than one lad.
Housman still retains his ability to shock as he combines traditional metrical and rhyming poetic forms with highly-charged emotional and pointedly political substance. For instance, poem XLV from The Shropshire Lad section:
If it chance your eye offend you,
Pluck it out, lad, and be sound:
‘Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,
And many a balsam grows on ground.
And if your hand or foot offend you,
Cut it off, lad, and be whole;
But play the man, stand up and end you,
When your sickness is your soul.
As mentioned above, Housman’s poems frequently address the subject of war. The following poem – “VI” in the “Additional Poems” section of the collection – demonstrates the amount of emotion that can be brought out even amidst the constraints of a poem consisting of merely two quatrains:
Ask me no more, for fear I should reply;
Others have held their tongues, and so can I;
Hundreds have died, and told no tale before:
Ask me no more, for fear I should reply—
How one was true and one was clean of stain
And one was braver than the heavens are high,
And one was fond of me: and all are slain.
Ask me no more, for fear I should reply.
It is most compelling that in his imperative statement “Ask me no more, for fear I should reply,” Housman’s poetic lines are more telling than any prose reply he could possibly fashion.
The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman is a wonderful selection to give you a feel for the emotional and topical span Housman covered throughout his lifetime. And to find such relevance one hundred years later marks Housman as a voice that will endure.
