William Ernest Henley

"When the wind storms by with a shout, and the stern sea-caves     Rejoice in the tramp and the roar of onsetting waves,     Then, then, it comes"

"(May 24, 1819 - January 22, 1901)     Sceptre and orb and crown,     High ensigns of a sovranty containing     The beauty and strength and state o"

"A square, squat room (a cellar on promotion),     Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight;     Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tinware;"

"His brow spreads large and placid, and his eye     Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still.     Soft lines of tranquil thought his face"

"Fill a glass with golden wine,     And the while your lips are wet     Set their perfume unto mine,     And forget,     Every kiss we take and"

"Out of the poisonous East,     Over a continent of blight,     Like a maleficent Influence released     From the most squalid cellarage of hell"

"I. M. - Margaret Emma Henley (1888-1894)     When you wake in your crib,     You, an inch of experience -     Vaulted about     With the wonder"

"The greater masters of the commonplace,     REMBRANDT and good SIR WALTER - only these     Could paint her all to you:    experienced ease"

"Exceeding tall, but built so well his height     Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb;     Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim;"

"(1829-1896)     Spring at her height on a morn at prime,     Sails that laugh from a flying squall,     Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme -"

"The full sea rolls and thunders     In glory and in glee.     O, bury me not in the senseless earth     But in the living sea!     Ay, bury m"

"Midsummer midnight skies,     Midsummer midnight influences and airs,     The shining sensitive silver of the sea     Touched with the strang"

"O, Falmouth is a fine town with ships in the bay,     And I wish from my heart it's there I was to-day;     I wish from my heart I was far away"

"These, to you now, O, more than ever now -     Now that the Ancient Enemy     Has passed, and we, we two that are one, have seen     A piece of"

"The Spirit of Wine     Sang in my glass, and I listened     With love to his odorous music,     His flushed and magnificent song.     - 'I am"

"I am the Reaper.     All things with heedful hook     Silent I gather.     Pale roses touched with the spring,     Tall corn in summer,     F"

"Carry me out     Into the wind and the sunshine,     Into the beautiful world.     O, the wonder, the spell of the streets!     The stature a"

"CARMEN PATIBULARE     (To H. S.)     Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook      And the rope of the Black Election,     'Tis the faith of the"

"You are carried in a basket,     Like a carcase from the shambles,     To the theatre, a cockpit     Where they stretch you on a table.     T"

"'As like the Woman as you can',      (Thus the New Adam was beguiled)     'So shall you touch the Perfect Man',      (God in the Garden heard"

"What have I done for you,      England, my England?     What is there I would not do,      England my own?     With your glorious eyes auste"

"Midsummer midnight skies,     Midsummer midnight influences and airs,     The shining, sensitive silver of the sea     Touched with the strange"

"Hist? . . .     Through the corridor's echoes,     Louder and nearer     Comes a great shuffling of feet.     Quick, every one of you,     St"

"Some starlit garden grey with dew,     Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,     What matters where, so I and you      Are worthy our desire"

"One with the ruined sunset,      The strange forsaken sands,     What is it waits and wanders      And signs with desperate hands?     What i"

"As with varnish red and glistening     Dripped his hair; his feet looked rigid;     Raised, he settled stiffly sideways:     You could see his"

"(To M. E. H.)     When you wake in your crib,     You, an inch of experience,     Vaulted about     With the wonder of darkness;     Wail"

"When the wind storms by with a shout, and the stern sea-caves     Exult in the tramp and the roar of onsetting waves,     Then, then, it comes"

"To A. J. H.              Time and the Earth -     The old Father and Mother -     Their teeming accomplished,     Their purpose fulfilled,"

"Time, the old humourist, has a trick to-day     Of moving landmarks and of levelling down,     Till into Town the Suburbs edge their way,     A"

"The nightingale has a lyre of gold,     The lark's is a clarion-call,     And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,     But I love him best"

"Her little face is like a walnut shell     With wrinkling lines; her soft, white hair adorns     Her withered brows in quaint, straight curls, l"

"Crosses and troubles a-many have proved me.     One or two women (God bless them!) have loved me.     I have worked and dreamed, and I've talked"

"Carmen Patibulare - To H. S.     Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook     And the rope of the Black Election,     'Tis the faith of the Fool that"

"Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably,     Neat-footed and weak-fingered:    in his face -     Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and to"

"The big teetotum twirls,     And epochs wax and wane     As chance subsides or swirls;     But of the loss and gain     The sum is always plai"

"In the placid summer midnight,     Under the drowsy sky,     I seem to hear in the stillness     The moths go glimmering by.     One by one f"

"Beside the idle summer sea     And in the vacant summer days,     Light Love came fluting down the ways,     Where you were loitering with me."

"Your heart has trembled to my tongue,     Your hands in mine have lain,     Your thought to me has leaned and clung,     Again and yet again,"

"The ways are green with the gladdening sheen     Of the young year's fairest daughter.     O, the shadows that fleet o'er the springing wheat!"

"Here in this dim, dull, double-bedded room,     I play the father to a brace of boys,     Ailing but apt for every sort of noise,     Bedfast b"

"Joy of the Milliner, Envy of the Line,     Star of the Parks, jack-booted, sworded, helmed,     He sits between his holsters, solid of spine;"

"Praise the generous gods for giving     In a world of wrath and strife     With a little time for living,     Unto all the joy of life.     A"

"O, gather me the rose, the rose,     While yet in flower we find it,     For summer smiles, but summer goes,     And winter waits behind it!"

"(To James McNeill Whistler)     Under a stagnant sky,     Gloom out of gloom uncoiling into gloom,     The River, jaded and forlorn,     W"

"The spring, my dear,     Is no longer spring.     Does the blackbird sing     What he sang last year?     Are the skies the old     Immemoria"

"By W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson,     Haymarket Theatre, November 3, 1890.     Spoken by Mr. TREE in the character of Beau Austin.     'To"

"You played and sang a snatch of song,      A song that all-too well we knew;     But whither had flown the ancient wrong;      And was it rea"

"One with the ruined sunset,     The strange forsaken sands,     What is it waits, and wanders,     And signs with desparate hands?     What i"

"It came with the threat of a waning moon      And the wail of an ebbing tide,     But many a woman has lived for less,      And many a man has"

"Above the Crags that fade and gloom     Starts the bare knee of Arthur's Seat;     Ridged high against the evening bloom,     The Old Town rise"

"By J. M. Barrie and H. B. Marriott Watson, Criterion Theatre, April 16, 1891.     To other boards for pun and song and dance!     Our purpose is an"

"(To R. F. B.)     We are the Choice of the Will: God, when He gave the word     That called us into line, set in our hand a sword;     Set u"

"O Time and Change, they range and range      From sunshine round to thunder!     They glance and go as the great winds blow,      And the bes"

"From the winter's grey despair,     From the summer's golden languor,     Death, the lover of Life,     Frees us for ever.     Inevitable, si"

"An ill March noon; the flagstones gray with dust;     An all-round east wind volleying straws and grit;     ST. MARTIN'S STEPS, where every veno"

"Like as a flamelet blanketed in smoke,     So through the anaesthetic shows my life;     So flashes and so fades my thought, at strife     With"

"Space and dread and the dark -     Over a livid stretch of sky     Cloud-monsters crawling, like a funeral train     Of huge, primeval presence"

"Gulls in an aery morrice      Gleam and vanish and gleam . . .     The full sea, sleepily basking,      Dreams under skies of dream.     Gull"

"Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade     On desolate sea and lonely sand,     Out of the silence and the shade     What is the voice of strange"