The laws of God, the laws of man,

The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Now I:    let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of mans bedevilment and Gods?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong,
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn or Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.

Alfred Edward Housman

Alfred Edward Housman was an English classical scholar and poet, best known for his cycle of poems "A Shropshire Lad." Housman's work is noted for its pessimism and preoccupation with death, youth, and the fleeting nature of beauty. His poetry, steeped in the English pastoral tradition, gained popularity during the Second Boer War and World War I. In addition to his poetry, Housman had a distinguished academic career, holding professorships at both University College London and the University of Cambridge.

Alfred Edward Housman

Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXXIV - The New Mistress

Alfred Edward Housman, Simple Poetry

Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - LXIII

Alfred Edward Housman, Simple Poetry

Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XLV

Alfred Edward Housman, Simple Poetry

Poems From "A Shropshire Lad" - XXIX - The Lent Lily

Alfred Edward Housman, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Long Purposes Of God

To Man in haste, flushed with impatient dreams
Of some great thing to do, so slowly done,
The long delay of Time all idle seems,
Idle the lordly leisure of the sun;
So splendid his design, so brief his span,
For all the faith with which his heart is burning,
He marvels, as he builds each shining plan,
That heaven's wheel should be so long in turning,
And God more slow in righteousness than Man.

Evil on evil mock him all about,
And all the forces of embattled wrong,
There are so many devils to cast out -
Save God be with him, how shall Man be strong?
With his own heart at war, to weakness prone,
And all the honeyed ways of joyous sinning,
How in this welter shall he hold his own,
And, single-handed, e'er have hopes of winning?
How shall he fight God'...

Richard Le Gallienne

Psal. LXXXII.

God in the ^*1great ^*1assembly stands
Of Kings and lordly States,
Among the gods^*2 on both his hands.
He judges and debates.
How long will ye ^*3pervert the right
With ^*4judgment false and wrong
Favouring the wicked by your might,
Who thence grow bold and strong?
^*5Regard the ^*5weak and fatherless
^*5Dispatch the ^*5poor mans cause,
And ^*6raise the man in deep distress
By ^*6just and equal Lawes.
Defend the poor and desolate,
And rescue from the hands
Of wicked men the low estate
Of him that help demands.
They know not nor will understand,
In darkness they walk on,
The Earths foundations all are ^*7mov'd
And ^*7...

John Milton

Covenent

We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.
Others might fall, not we, for we were wise,
Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will
We let our servants drug our strength with lies.
The pleasure and the poison had its way
On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
Neither God's judgment nor man's heart was turned.

Yet there remains His Mercy to be sought
Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong
By that last right which our forefathers claimed
When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought.
This is our cause. God help us, and make strong
Our will to meet Him later, unashamed!

Rudyard

Humanity

What though the Accused, upon his own appeal
To righteous Gods when man has ceased to feel,
Or at a doubting Judge's stern command,
Before the Stone of Power no longer stand
To take his sentence from the balanced Block,
As, at his touch, it rocks, or seems to rock;
Though, in the depths of sunless groves, no more
The Druid-priest the hallowed Oak adore;
Yet, for the Initiate, rocks and whispering trees
Do still perform mysterious offices!
And functions dwell in beast and bird that sway
The reasoning mind, or with the fancy play,
Inviting, at all seasons, ears and eyes
To watch for undelusive auguries:
Not uninspired appear their simplest ways;
Their voices mount symbolical of praise
To mix with hymns that Spirits make and hear;
And to fallen man their inn...

William Wordsworth

A Sequel To The Foregoing

List, the winds of March are blowing;
Her ground-flowers shrink, afraid of showing
Their meek heads to the nipping air,
Which ye feel not, happy pair!
Sunk into a kindly sleep.
We, meanwhile, our hope will keep;
And if Time leagued with adverse Change
(Too busy fear!) shall cross its range,
Whatsoever check they bring,
Anxious duty hindering,
To like hope our prayers will cling.

Thus, while the ruminating spirit feeds
Upon the events of home as life proceeds,
Affections pure and holy in their source
Gain a fresh impulse, run a livelier course;
Hopes that within the Father's heart prevail,
Are in the experienced Grandsire's slow to fail;
And if the harp pleased his gay youth, it rings
To his grave touch with no unready strings,
While though...

William Wordsworth

To His Honoured Friend, M. John Weare, Councillor.

Did I or love, or could I others draw
To the indulgence of the rugged law,
The first foundation of that zeal should be
By reading all her paragraphs in thee,
Who dost so fitly with the laws unite,
As if you two were one hermaphrodite.
Nor courts[t] thou her because she's well attended
With wealth, but for those ends she was intended:
Which were, - and still her offices are known, -
Law is to give to ev'ry one his own;
To shore the feeble up against the strong,
To shield the stranger and the poor from wrong.
This was the founder's grave and good intent:
To keep the outcast in his tenement,
To free the orphan from that wolf-like man,
Who is his butcher more than guardian;
To dry the widow's tears, and stop her swoons,
By pouring balm and oil into her...

Robert Herrick