When I Was One-and-Twenty
A. E. Housman * Track #13 On A Shropshire Lad
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Album A Shropshire Lad
- #11887
A. E. Housman
- #2
Loveliest of trees, the cherry nowA. E. Housman
- #3The Recruit
A. E. Housman
- #4
ReveilleA. E. Housman
- #5Oh see how thick the goldcup flowers
A. E. Housman
- #6When the lad for longing sighs,
A. E. Housman
- #7
When smoke stood up from LudlowA. E. Housman
- #8Farewell to barn and stack and tree
A. E. Housman
- #9On moonlit heath and lonesome bank
A. E. Housman
- #10March
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- #11On your midnight pallet lying
A. E. Housman
- #12When I watch the living meet
A. E. Housman
- #13When I Was One-and-Twenty
A. E. Housman
- #14There pass the careless people
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- #15Look not in my eyes, for fear
A. E. Housman
- #16It nods and curtseys and recovers
A. E. Housman
- #17Twice a week the winter thorough
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- #18Oh, when I was in love with you
A. E. Housman
- #19To An Athlete Dying Young
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- #20
Oh fair enough are sky and plainA. E. Housman
- #21Bredon Hill
A. E. Housman
- #22The street sounds to the soldiers’ tread
A. E. Housman
- #23The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair
A. E. Housman
- #24Say, lad, have you things to do
A. E. Housman
- #25This time of year a twelvemonth past
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- #26Along the fields as we came by
A. E. Housman
- #27Is My Team Ploughing
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- #28The Welsh Marches
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- #29The Lent Lily
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- #30Others, I am not the first
A. E. Housman
- #31On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble
A. E. Housman
- #32From far, from eve and morning
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- #33If truth in hearts that perish
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- #34The New Mistress
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- #35On the idle hill of summer
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- #36
White in the moon the long road liesA. E. Housman
- #37As through the wild green hills of Wyre
A. E. Housman
- #38The winds out of the west land blow
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- #39Tis time, I think by Wenlock town
A. E. Housman
- #40Into my heart an air that kills
A. E. Housman
- #41In my own shire, if I was sad
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- #42
The Merry GuideA. E. Housman
- #43The Immortal Part
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- #44Shot? so quick, so clean an ending?
A. E. Housman
- #45If it chance your eye offend you
A. E. Housman
- #46Bring, in this timeless grave to throw
A. E. Housman
- #47The Carpenter’s Son
A. E. Housman
- #48Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle
A. E. Housman
- #49Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly
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- #50Clunton and Clunbury
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- #51
Loitering with a vacant eyeA. E. Housman
- #52Far in a western brookland
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- #53The True Lover
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- #54With rue my heart is laden
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- #55Westward on the high-hilled plains
A. E. Housman
- #56The Day Of Battle
A. E. Housman
- #57You smile upon your friend to-day
A. E. Housman
- #58When I came last to Ludlow
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- #59The Isle Of Portland
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- #60Now hollow fires burn out to black
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- #61Hughley Steeple
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- #62“Terence, this is stupid stuff”
A. E. Housman
- #63I Hoed and trenched and weeded
A. E. Housman
When I Was One-and-Twenty by A. E. Housman
Performed by
A. E. HousmanAbout
Housman on keeping a stiff upper lip in matters of the heart.
The poem presents a kind of proverbial wisdom without narrating what has actually happened to the speaker. Housman leaves it to us to imagine the sad story, inducing us to agree with the wise man. The tone is more one of experiential reg...
When I Was One-and-Twenty Annotated
XIII
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.