More Poems

More Poems is a collection of 49 poems by the English classical scholar and poet A. E. Housman (1859–1936). It was published in 1936 by his brother Laurence, after the poet's death. The American edition, published the same year, had many textual differences to the British original.^[1]^:492

In the preface, Laurence included the following instructions from the poet's will:

"I direct my brother, Laurence Housman, to destroy all my prose manuscripts in whatever language, and I permit him but do not enjoin him to select from my verse manuscript writing, and to publish, any poems which appear to him to be completed and to be not inferior to the average of my published poems; and I direct him to destroy all other poems and fragments of verse."

More Poems was published as a result. A further selection of poems was included in Collected Poems (1939) under the heading Additional Poems.^[1]^:492

More Poems has been less influential on other artists than Housman's earlier collections A Shropshire Lad (1896) and Last Poems (1922).

The poems

The poems are identified in the following list by their first lines; the titles, where given (they are in capital letters), are Housman's own.

- "They say my verse is sad: no wonder
I EASTER HYMN ("If in that Syrian garden, ages slain")
II "When Israel out of Egypt came"
III "For these of old the trader"
IV THE SAGE TO THE YOUNG MAN ("O youth whose heart is right")
V DIFFUGERE NIVES ("The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws")
VI "I to my perils"
VII "Stars, I have seen them fall"
VIII "Give me a land of boughs in leaf"
IX "When green buds hang in the elm like dust"
X "The weeping Pleiads wester"
XI "The rainy Pleiads wester"
XII "I promise nothing: friends will part"
XIII "I lay me down and slumber"
XIV "The farms of home lie lost in even"
XV "Tarry, delight, so seldom met"
XVI "How clear, how lovely bright"
XVII "Bells in tower at evening toll"
XVIII "Delight it is in youth and May"
XIX "The mill-stream, now that noises cease"
XX "Like mine, the veins of these that slumber"
XXI "The world goes none the lamer"
XXII "Ho, everyone that thirsteth"
XXIII "Crossing alone the nighted ferry"
XXIV "Stone, steel, dominions pass"

XXV "Yon flakes that fret the eastern sky"
XXVI "Good creatures, do you love your lives"
XXVII "To stand up straight and tread the turning mill"
XXVIII "He, standing hushed, a pace or two apart"
XXIX "From the wash the laundress sends"
XXX "Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all's over"
XXXI "Because I liked you better"
XXXII "With seed the sowers scatter"
XXXIII "On forelands high in heaven"
XXXIV "Young is the blood that yonder"
XXXV "Half-way, for one commandment broken"
XXXVI "Here dead we lie because we did not choose"
XXXVII "I did not lose my heart in summer's even"
XXXVIII "By shores and woods and steeples"
XXXIX "My dreams are of a field afar"
XL "Farewell to a name and a number"
XLI "He looked at me with eyes I thought"
XLII A.J.J. ("When he's returned I'll tell him – oh")
XLIII "I wake from dreams and turning"
XLIV "Far known to sea and shore"
XLV "Smooth between sea and land"
XLVI THE LAND OF BISCAY ("Hearken, landsmen, hearken, seamen")
XLVII FOR MY FUNERAL ("O thou that from thy mansion")
XLVIII PARTA QUIES ("Good-night; ensured release")

Notes on the poems

IV had been published anonymously in The Edwardian (April 1916). It had been intended for A Shropshire Lad, but was deleted in page proof.^[1]^:494
V is based on the Roman poet Horace's Ode IV.7. It had been published in Quarto (Vol. 3, 1897). It is Housman's only published verse translation from the Latin. In The Times (5 May 1936), Mrs T. W. Pym recalled a lecture in 1914: 'He read the ode aloud with deep emotion, first in Latin and then in an English translation of his own. "That," he said hurriedly, almost like a man betraying a secret, "I regard as the most beautiful poem in ancient literature," and walked quickly out of the room.'^[1]^:494
XVIII had been intended for Last Poems, but was deleted at the proof stage.^[1]^:494
XXIII alludes to the Hades of Greek mythology: the river Lethe and the ferryman Charon
XXVI had been intended for Last Poems, but was deleted at the proof stage.^[1]^:494
XXXIII had been intended for Last Poems, but was deleted at the proof stage.^[1]^:494
XXXV alludes to the biblical story of Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt
XLII commemorates Housman's friend Adalbert Jackson.^[1]^:495
XLV had been printed for Last Poems, but was removed.^[1]^:495
XLVI had been intended for Last Poems, but was deleted at the proof stage.^[1]^:495
XLVII was sung at Housman's funeral service.^[1]^{:12, 495}
XLVIII had been published in Waifs and Strays (March 1881), signed "A.E.H.". It was included in More Poems under the title ALTA QUIES and with textual variants. The original title and text were restored in Collected Poems (1939)^[1]^:496

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Ricks, Christopher, ed. (1988). A. E. Housman: Collected Poems and Selected Prose. London: Penguin Books.

More Poems at Wikilivres Canada

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 6/19/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.