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" These lines are a clear reference to how Housman felt about his homosexual lifestyle, for after his appointment in 1892 as professor of Latin at University College in London, Housman became "convinced that he must live without love" which drove him to become "increasingly reclusive" as a Latin scholar and poet ("A.E. Housman Biography," Internet). Also, Housman makes it quite evident that without love (in this case, the love of another man), his physical self is nothing less than a "dying animal" with a heart consumed by unrequited love and sexual desire. Also, Housman relates that the narrator "knows not what it is," a reference to himself as a gay man who only wishes to be gathered into "the artifice of eternity," with "artifice" symbolizing his desire to escape reality and hid within the confines of eternity.
In the last verse, the narrator declares "Once out of nature I shall never take/My bodily form from any natural thing" which symbolizes his desire that once death overtakes him, he does not wish to return as a "natural" entity, yet another example of his homosexual urges and the lack of being loved as a...
However, as a symbol of Housman's ardent appreciation for the ancient Greeks, he wishes to return as something beautiful to the eye, i.e., a form of "hammered gold," perhaps as a statue enameled in gold which sings (or recites poetry) to the "lords and ladies" of ancient Byzantium, songs of the past, the present and the future. As Braithwaite puts it, Shot? So Quick, So Clean an Ending is replete with "a spirit whom life may menace with its contradictions and fatalities, but never dupe (Housman's "artifice") with its circumstance and mystery" (Introduction," Internet).
Bibliography
A.E. Housman." Literary Heritage. Internet. 2002. Retrieved at http://www3.
A shropshire-cc.gov.uk/housman.htm.
A.E. Housman Biography." Famous Poets and Poems.com. Internet. 2007.
Retrieved at http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/a_e_housman/biography.
Introduction." infoplease. Internet. 2007. Retrieved at http://www.infoplease.com / t/poetry/shropshire-lad/introduction.html.
Kennedy, William. The Poetry of a.E. Housman. New York: Putnam, 1986.
Bibliography
A.E. Housman." Literary Heritage. Internet. 2002. Retrieved at http://www3.
A shropshire-cc.gov.uk/housman.htm.
A.E. Housman Biography." Famous Poets and Poems.com. Internet. 2007.
Retrieved at http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/a_e_housman/biography.
Introduction." infoplease. Internet. 2007. Retrieved at http://www.infoplease.com / t/poetry/shropshire-lad/introduction.html.
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