Poems

by William Ernest Henley

‘Here’s a sigh to those who love me
And a smile to those who hate.’

I refer to it for the simple pleasure of reflecting that it has made me many friends and some enemies.

W. E. H.

Muswell Hill, 4th September 1897.

CONTENTS

IN HOSPITAL
		PAGE
I.	Enter Patient	[3]
II.	Waiting	[4]
III.	Interior	[5]
IV.	Before	[6]
V.	Operation	[7]
VI.	After	[9]
VII.	Vigil	[10]
VIII.	Staff-Nurse: Old Style	[13]
IX.	Lady Probationer	[14]
X.	Staff-Nurse: New Style	[15]
XI.	Clinical	[16]
XII.	Etching	[19]
XIII.	Casualty	[21]
XIV.	Ave, Caeser!	[23]
XV.	‘The Chief’	[24]
XVI.	House-Surgeon	[25]
XVII.	Interlude	[26]
XVIII.	Children: Private Ward	[28]
XIX.	Srcubber	[29]
XX.	Visitor	[30]
XXI.	Romance	[31]
XXII.	Pastoral	[33]
XXIII.	Music	[35]
XXIV.	Suicide	[37]
XXV.	Apparition	[39]
XXVI.	Anterotics	[40]
XXVII.	Nocturn	[41]
XXVIII.	Discharged	[42]
Envoy		[44]
The Song of theSword		[47]
Arabian Nights’Entertainments		[57]
BRIC-À-BRAC
Ballade of the Toyokuni Colour-Print		[79]
Ballade of Youth and Age		[81]
Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights		[83]
Ballade of Dead Actors		[85]
Ballade Made in the Hot Weather		[87]
Ballade of Truisms		[89]
Double Ballade of Life and Death		[91]
Double Ballade of the Nothingness ofThings		[94]
At Queensferry		[98]
Orientale		[99]
In Fisherrow		[100]
Back-View		[101]
Croquis		[102]
Attadale, West Highlands		[103]
From a Window in Princes Street		[104]
In the Dials		[105]
The gods are dead		[106]
Let us be drunk		[107]
When you are old		[108]
Beside the idle summer sea		[109]
The ways of Death are soothing and serene		[110]
We shall surely die		[111]
What is to come		[112]
ECHOES
I.	To my mother	[115]
II.	Life is bitter	[117]
III.	O, gather me the rose	[118]
IV.	Out of the night that covers me	[119]
V.	I am the Reaper	[120]
VI.	Praise the generous gods	[122]
VII.	Fill a glass with golden wine	[123]
VIII.	We’ll go no more a-roving	[124]
IX.	Madam Life’s a piece in bloom	[126]
X.	The sea is full of wandering foam	[127]
XI.	Thick is the darkness	[128]
XII.	To me at my fifth-floor window	[129]
XIII.	Bring her again, O western wind	[130]
XIV.	The wan sun westers, faint and slow	[131]
XV.	There is a wheel inside my head	[133]
XVI.	While the west is paling	[134]
XVII.	The sands are alive with sunshine	[135]
XVIII.	The nightingale has a lyre of gold	[136]
XIX.	Your heart has trembled to my tongue	[137]
XX.	The surges gushed and sounded	[138]
XXI.	We flash across the level	[139]
XXII.	The West a glimmering lake of light	[140]
XXIII.	The skies are strown with stars	[142]
XXIV.	The full sea rolls and thunders	[143]
XXV.	In the year that’s come and gone	[144]
XXVI.	In the placid summer midnight	[146]
XXVII.	She sauntered by the swinging seas	[148]
XXVIII.	Blithe dreams arise to greet us	[149]
XXIX.	A child	[152]
XXX.	Kate-A-Whimsies, John-a-Dreams	[154]
XXXI.	O, have you blessed, behind the stars	[155]
XXXII.	O, Falmouth is a fine town	[156]
XXXIII.	The ways are green	[158]
XXXIV.	Life in her creaking shoes	[169]
XXXV.	A late lark twitters from the quiet skies	[161]
XXXVI.	I gave my heart to a woman	[163]
XXXVII.	Or ever the knightly years were gone	[164]
XXXVIII.	On the way to Kew	[166]
XXXIX.	The past was goodly once	[168]
XL.	The spring, my dear	[169]
XLI.	The Spirit of Wine	[170]
XLII.	A Wink from Hesper	[172]
XLIII.	Friends. . . old friends	[173]
XLIV.	If it should come to be	[175]
XLV.	From the brake the Nightingale	[179]
XLVI.	In the waste hour	[178]
XLVII.	Crosses and troubles	[181]
LONDONVOLUNTARIES
I.	Grave	[185]
II.	Andante con Moto	[187]
III.	Scherzando	[192]
IV.	Largo e Mesto	[186]
V.	Allegro Maëstoso	[200]
RHYMES ANDRHYTHMS
Prologue		[207]
I.	Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade	[209]
II.	We are the Choice of the Will	[211]
III.	A desolate shore	[214]
IV.	It came with the threat of a waning moon	[216]
V.	Why, my heart, do we love her so?	[217]
VI.	One with the ruined sunset	[218]
VII.	There’s a regret	[219]
VIII.	Time and the Earth	[221]
IX.	As like the Woman as you can	[223]
X.	Midsummer midnight skies	[225]
XI.	Gulls in an aery morrice	[227]
XII.	Some starlit garden grey with dew	[228]
XIII.	Under a stagnant sky	[229]
XIV.	Fresh from his fastnesses	[231]
XV.	You played and sang a snatch of song	[233]
XVI.	Space and dread and the dark	[234]
XVII.	Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook	[236]
XVIII.	When you wake in your crib	[239]
XIX.	O, Time and Change	[242]
XX.	The shadow of Dawn	[243]
XXI.	When the wind storms by with a shout	[244]
XXII.	Trees and the menace of night	[245]
XXIII.	Here they trysted, here they strayed	[247]
XXIV.	Not to the staring Day	[249]
XXV.	What have I done for you	[251]
Epilogue		[256]

IN HOSPITAL

On ne saurait dire à quel point un homme, seul dans son
lit et malade, devient personnel.—

Balzac.

I
ENTER PATIENT

The morning mists still haunt the stony street;
The northern summer air is shrill and cold;
And lo, the Hospital, grey, quiet, old,
Where Life and Death like friendly chafferers meet.
Thro’ the loud spaciousness and draughty gloom
A small, strange child—so agèd yet so young!—
Her little arm besplinted and beslung,
Precedes me gravely to the waiting-room.
I limp behind, my confidence all gone.
The grey-haired soldier-porter waves me on,
And on I crawl, and still my spirits fail:
A tragic meanness seems so to environ
These corridors and stairs of stone and iron,
Cold, naked, clean—half-workhouse and half-jail.