»A Shropshire Lad / The Invention of Love

While reading Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love, I fell to thinking about poor, downtrodden Alfred E., and plucked a slender paper-backed copy of "A Shropshire Lad" from the shelf. Woebegone this is, but the collection contains one of my favourite poems: "Terence, this is stupid stuff" in which Housman's alter-ego hears that "Malt does more than Milton can / to justify God's ways to man." And how. I am off for a pint.