William Ernest Henley

"(To P. A. G.)     Here they trysted, here they strayed,      In the leafage dewy and boon,     Many a man and many a maid,      And the mo"

"The sands are alive with sunshine,     The bathers lounge and throng,     And out in the bay a bugle     Is lilting a gallant song.     The c"

"Blithe dreams arise to greet us,     And life feels clean and new,     For the old love comes to meet us     In the dawning and the dew.     O"

"Far out of bounds he's figured - in a race     Of West-End traffic pitching to his loss.     But if you'd see him in his proper place,     Maki"

"Do you remember     That afternoon - that Sunday afternoon! -     When, as the kirks were ringing in,     And the grey city teemed     With Sa"

"Down through the ancient Strand     The spirit of October, mild and boon     And sauntering, takes his way     This golden end of afternoon,"

"Army Reserve; a worshipper of BOBS,     With whom he stripped the smock from CANDAHAR;     Neat as his mount, that neatest among cobs;     When"

"Gold or silver, every day,     Dies to gray.     There are knots in every skein.     Hours of work and hours of play     Fade away     Into o"

"On the way to Kew,     By the river old and gray,     Where in the Long Ago     We laughed and loitered so,     I met a ghost to-day,     A g"

"From the brake the Nightingale     Sings exulting to the Rose;     Though he sees her waxing pale     In her passionate repose,     While she"

"His beat lies knee-high through a dust of story -     A dust of terror and torture, grief and crime;     Ghosts that are ENGLAND'S wonder, and"

"What is to come we know not.    But we know     That what has been was good, was good to show,     Better to hide, and best of all to bear."

"To P. A. G.     Here they trysted, here they strayed,     In the leafage dewy and boon,     Many a man and many a maid,     And the morn was me"

"Forth from the dust and din,     The crush, the heat, the many-spotted glare,     The odour and sense of life and lust aflare,     The wrangle"

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

"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;"

"Behold me waiting - waiting for the knife.     A little while, and at a leap I storm     The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform,     The drunke"

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

"London, December 10, 1869.     Ladysmith, January 15, 1900.     We cheered you forth - brilliant and kind and brave.     Under your country's"

"While the west is paling     Starshine is begun.     While the dusk is failing     Glimmers up the sun.     So, till darkness cover     Life"

"Who says Drum-Major says a man of mould,     Shaking the meek earth with tremendous tread,     And pacing still, a triumph to behold,     Of hi"

"'O mes cheres Mille et Une Nuits!' - Fantasio.     Once on a time     There was a little boy:    a master-mage     By virtue of a Book     Of mag"

"Down the quiet eve,     Thro' my window with the sunset     Pipes to me a distant organ     Foolish ditties;     And, as when you change"

"A desolate shore,     The sinister seduction of the Moon,     The menace of the irreclaimable Sea.     Flaunting, tawdry and grim,     From c"

"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"

"There's a regret     So grinding, so immitigably sad,     Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad. . . .     Do you not know it yet?     Fo"

"To me at my fifth-floor window     The chimney-pots in rows     Are sets of pipes pandean     For every wind that blows;     And the smoke th"

"The gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows?     Living at least in Lempriere undeleted,     The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose,"

"O, the fun, the fun and frolic     That The Wind that Shakes the Barley     Scatters through a penny-whistle     Tickled with artistic fingers!"

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

"There's a regret     So grinding, so immitigably sad,     Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad . . .     Do you not know it yet?     For"

"We shall surely die:     Must we needs grow old?     Grow old and cold,     And we know not why?     O, the By-and-By,     And the tale that"

"Kate-a-Whimsies, John-a-Dreams,     Still debating, still delay,     And the world's a ghost that gleams -     Wavers - vanishes away!     We"

"The West a glimmering lake of light,     A dream of pearly weather,     The first of stars is burning white -     The star we watch together."

"Life is bitter. All the faces of the years,     Young and old, are grey with travail and with tears.     Must we only wake to toil, to tire, to"

"The gaunt brown walls     Look infinite in their decent meanness.     There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle,     The fulsome fire."

"The sea is full of wandering foam,     The sky of driving cloud;     My restless thoughts among them roam . . .     The night is dark and loud."

"Her little feet!... Beneath us ranged the sea,         She sat, from sun and wind umbrella-shaded,     One shoe above the other danglingly,"

"A hard north-easter fifty winters long     Has bronzed and shrivelled sere her face and neck;     Her locks are wild and grey, her teeth a wreck"

"To A. C.     Not to the staring Day,     For all the importunate questionings he pursues     In his big, violent voice,     Shall those mild th"

"A black and glassy float, opaque and still,     The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep,     Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep     The"

"At the barren heart of midnight,     When the shadow shuts and opens     As the loud flames pulse and flutter,     I can hear a cistern leaking"

"The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean     We bowled along a road that curved a spine     Superbly sinuous and serpentine     Thro'"

"Some three, or five, or seven, and thirty years;     A Roman nose; a dimpling double-chin;     Dark eyes and shy that, ignorant of sin,     Are"

"We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.     November glooms are barren beside the dusk of June.     The summer flowers are faded, th"

"A desolate shore,     The sinister seduction of the Moon,     The menace of the irreclaimable Sea.     Flaunting, tawdry and grim,     From c"

"I. M. - R. L. S.    (1850-1894)     O, Time and Change, they range and range     From sunshine round to thunder! -     They glance and go as the"

"Trees and the menace of night;     Then a long, lonely, leaden mere     Backed by a desolate fell,     As by a spectral battlement; and then,"

"O, have you blessed, behind the stars,     The blue sheen in the skies,     When June the roses round her calls? -     Then do you know the lig"

"A wink from Hesper, falling     Fast in the wintry sky,     Comes through the even blue,     Dear, like a word from you . . .     Is it good-b"

"Madam Life's a piece in bloom     Death goes dogging everywhere:     She's the tenant of the room,     He's the ruffian on the stair.     You"

"Chiming a dream by the way     With ocean's rapture and roar,     I met a maiden to-day     Walking alone on the shore:     Walking in maiden"

"To GARRYOWEN upon an organ ground     Two girls are jigging.    Riotously they trip,     With eyes aflame, quick bosoms, hand on hip,     As in"

"ENVOY     My songs were once of the sunrise:     They shouted it over the bar;     First-footing the dawns, they flourished,     And flamed with"

"St. Margaret's bells,     Quiring their innocent, old-world canticles,     Sing in the storied air,     All rosy-and-golden, as with memories"

"(February 15 - September 28, 1894)     To V. G.     That day we brought our Beautiful One to lie     In the green peace within your gates, he ca"

"The beach was crowded.    Pausing now and then,     He groped and fiddled doggedly along,     His worn face glaring on the thoughtless throng"

"'LIZA'S old man's perhaps a little shady,     'LIZA'S old woman's prone to booze and cringe;     But 'LIZA deems herself a perfect lady,     An"

"She sauntered by the swinging seas,     A jewel glittered at her ear,     And, teasing her along, the breeze     Brought many a rounded grace m"

"Two and thirty is the ploughman.     He's a man of gallant inches,     And his hair is close and curly,     And his beard;     But his face is"