Tell me Not Here, it Needs not saying..." by A.E. Housman.

This poem is found in Housman’s

Last Poems, it is number 40:  

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,

    What tune the enchantress plays

In aftermaths of soft September

    Or under blanching mays,

For she and I were long acquainted

    And I knew all her ways

On russet floors, by waters idle,

    The pine lets down the cone;

The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing

    In leafy dells alone;

And traveller’s joy beguiles in autumn

    Hearts that have lost their own.

On acres of the seeded grasses

    The changing burnish heaves;

Or marshalled under moons of harvest

    Stand still all night the sheaves;

Or beeches strip in storms for winter

    And stain the wind with leaves.

Possess, as I possessed a season,

   The countries I resign,

Where over elmy plains the highway

   Would mount the hills and shine,

And full of shade the pillared forest

   Would murmur and be mine.

For nature, heartless, witless nature,

   Will neither care not know

What stranger’s feet may find the meadow

   And trespass there and go,

Nor ask amid the dews of morning

   If they are mine or no.

The poem with the stressed

syllables underlined:

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,

    What tune the enchantress plays

In aftermaths of soft September

    Or under blanching mays,

For she and I were long acquainted

    And I knew all her ways

On russet floors, by waters idle,

    The pine lets down the cone;

The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing

    In leafy dells alone;

And traveller’s joy beguiles in autumn

    Hearts that have lost their own.

On acres of the seeded grasses

    The changing burnish heaves;

Or marshalled under moons of harvest

    Stand still all night the sheaves;

Or beeches strip in storms for winter

    And stain the wind with leaves.

Possess, as I possessed a season,

   The countries I resign,

Where over elmy plains the highway

   Would mount the hills and shine,

And full of shade the pillared forest

   Would murmur and be mine.

For nature, heartless, witless nature,

   Will neither care not know

What stranger’s feet may find the meadow

   And trespass there and go,

Nor ask amid the dews of morning

   If they are mine or no.

In this poem, nature is being 

compared to a heartless woman

the speaker loved in a rather

unconscious or elusive way.

The beautiful scenes of nature

invoked are experienced alone,

and create a feeling of sad

loneliness and longing. The

idea of an insane and cruel or

“witless” world is emphasised

by the image of a cuckoo that

that “shouts all day at nothing”.

© C.A. MacLennan 2025

Crossing Alone the Nighted Ferry (by A.E. Housman).

 

This is poem number 23 of

Housman's More Poems.:

Crossing alone the nighted ferry

    With the one coin for fee,

Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,

    Count you to find? Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,

    The true, sick-hearted slave,

Expect him not in the just city 

    And free land of the grave.

The poem with the stressed

syllables underlined:

Crossing alone the nighted ferry

    With the one coin for fee,

Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,

    Count you to find? Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,

    The true, sick-hearted slave,

Expect him not in the just city 

    And free land of the grave.

This is a poem about dreaming about

being free from a love no longer

wanted. In death the speaker

presumes he will be free at last, and

enjoys the idea of his beloved being

disappointed by his absence and

change of attitude in the next world.

The allusion to the Greek underworld

shows how much it was on Housman's

mind rather than a Christian other-

world. Rather than a place of reward

or punishment, it is just another

world.

© C.A. MacLennan 2025

In Midnights of November (by A.E. Housman).

 

This poem is found in Housman’s

Last Poems, it is number 19:   

In midnights of November,

    When Dead Man’s Fair is nigh,

And danger in the valley,

    And anger in the sky,

Around the huddling homesteads

    The leafless timber roars,

And the dead call the dying

    And finger at the doors.

Oh, yonder faltering fingers

    Are hands I used to hold;

Their false companion drowses

    And leaves them in the cold.

Oh, to the bed of ocean,

    To Africk and to Ind,

I will arise and follow

    Along the rainy wind.

The night goes out and under

    With all its train forlorn;

Hues in the east assemble

    And cocks crow up the morn.

The living are the living

    And dead the dead will stay,

And I will sort with comrades

    That face the beam of day. 

The poem with the stressed

syllables underlined:

In midnights of November,

    When Dead Man’s Fair is nigh,

And danger in the valley,

    And anger in the sky,

Around the huddling homesteads

    The leafless timber roars,

And the dead call the dying

    And finger at the doors.

Oh, yonder faltering fingers

    Are hands I used to hold;

Their false companion drowses

    And leaves them in the cold.

Oh, to the bed of ocean,

    To Africk and to Ind,

I will arise and follow

    Along the rainy wind.

The night goes out and under

    With all its train forlorn;

Hues in the east assemble

    And cocks crow up the morn.

The living are the living

    And dead the dead will stay,

And I will sort with comrades

    That face the beam of day. 

Analysis:

The living in this poem are called "the

dying". This is a kind of scarier version

of "Is my team ploughing?" with the

false living lover drowsing/sleeping.

It is still more exactly another version

of "The True Lover, except from a

more objective viewpoint. The fourth

verse is the most poetic but most puzzling.

Is it referring to the living lover goin

spiritually to the dead lover? The sea

bed, Africa and Indian seem to be places

a soldier or sailor would end up dead.

The night's "train forlorn" are the ghosts

that follow it.

© C.A. MacLennan 2025