For any reader or writer of poetry with a formalist bent, A.E. Housman (1859–1936) is the gold standard of modern verse. Like Philip Larkin, Housman (whose birthday is March 26) can be grim, sardonic, facile, and merciless. But he also makes formal verse look easy — and as every writer knows, simple is hard. Maybe the hardest of all things to do. In “When I Was One-and-Twenty,” Housman uses doubled quatrains in trimeter (a rarish beat, sometimes called “half meter,” that relies on the ear hearing the ghost of 4/3 ballad meter) to joke of the wisdom that descends between ages twenty-one and twenty-two.

When I Was One-and-Twenty
by A.E. Housman

When I was one-and-twenty
       I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
       But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
       But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
       No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
       I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
       Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
       And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
       And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by the Sun’s poetry editor, Joseph Bottum of Dakota State University, with the help of the North Carolina poet, Sally Thomas. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.