That end for which we make, we two that are one:
A little exquisite Ghost
Between us, smiling with the serenest eyes
Seen in this world, and calling, calling still
In that clear voice whose infinite subtleties
Of sweetness, thrilling back across the grave,
Break the poor heart to hear:
“Come, Dadsie, come?
Mama, how long—how long?”
Sufferer and sensualist, Henley found in the affections some relief from his savage unrest. It was affection that painted that masterly sonnet-portrait of Stevenson in Apparition, and there is affection, too, in that song in praise of England, Pro Rege Nostro, though much of his praise of England, like his praise of life, is but poetry of lust. Lust in action, unfortunately, has a way of being absurd, and Henley is often absurd in his lustful—by which one does not mean lascivious—poems. His Song of the Sword and his Song of Speed are both a little absurd in their sheer lustfulness. Here we have a mere extravagance of physical exultation, with a great deal of talk about “the Lord,” who is—to the ruin of the verse—a figure of rhetoric and phrase of excitement, and not at all the Holy Spirit of the religious.