Do Not Ever Read Books About Versification:

They Put Arsenic In His Meat And Stared Aghast To Watch Him Eat; They Poured Strychnine In His Cup And Shook To See Him Drink It Up.

Even When Poetry Has A Meaning, As It Usually Has, It May Be Inadvisable To Draw It Out. Perfect Understanding Will Sometimes Almost Extinguish Pleasure.

Mithridates, He Died Old. Housman's Passage Is Based On The Belief Of The Ancients That Mithridates The Great [c. 135-63 B.c.] Had So Saturated His Body With Poisons That None Could Injure Him. When Captured By The Romans He Tried In Vain To Poison Himself, Then Ordered A Gallic Mercenary To Kill Him.

White In The Moon The Long Road Lies, The Moon Stands Blank Above; White In The Moon The Long Road Lies That Leads Me From My Love. Still Hangs The Hedge Without A Gust, Still, Still The Shadows Stay: My Feet Upon The Moonlit Dust Pursue The Ceaseless Way. The World Is Round, So Travellers Tell, And Straight Through Reach The Track, Trudge On, Trudge On, 'twill All Be Well, The Way Will Guide One Back. But Ere The Circle Homeward Hies Far, Far Must It Remove: White In The Moon The Long Road Lies That Leads Me From My Love.

And Malt Does More Than Milton Can To Justify God's Ways To Man.