Saturday Rave: Into my heart an air that kills by A E Housman.

 It has to be said that A E Housman didn't really have the knack of being a great poet. He did all the totally-overlooked-and-unappreciated thing, and he did suffer from unrequited love, but instead of living in a state of despair and increasing poverty, and then dying young, he got himself a job, self-published his scholarly work and his poems, and stayed good friends with the object of his affections.

To compound matters, he was then noticed and ended up being a professor at Cambridge, and recognised as both one of the greatest classical scholars ever, and as a hugely popular and respected poet.

To put the kibosh on things completely, he went and lived to be seventy-seven.

Here's the fortieth poem from his first, self-published collection, A Shropshire Lad (which he wasn't: he came from the outskirts of Birmingham and he was an rather un-laddish thirty-seven when the book was published. But never mind).

The poem is short, simple, beautiful, and has two famous quotes in it.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

Word To Use Today: lost. This word comes from the Old English word losian, which meant to perish.