As Like The Woman As You Can by William Ernest Henley
‘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 and smiled). ‘Your father perished with his day: ‘A clot of passions fierce and blind, ‘He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way: ‘Your muscles, Child, must […]
A Thanksgiving by William Ernest Henley
From brief delights that rise to me Out of unfathomable dole, I thank whatever gods there be For mine unconquerable soul. In the strong clutch of Circumstance It has not winced, nor groaned aloud. Before the blows of eyeless chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. I front unfeared the threat of space And dwindle […]
At Queensferry by William Ernest Henley
The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean We bowled along a road that curved a spine Superbly sinuous and serpentine Thro’ silent symphonies of summer green. Sudden the Forth came on us–sad of mien, No cloud to colour it, no breeze to line: A sheet of dark, dull glass, without a sign Of […]
A New Song to an Old Tune by William Ernest Henley
SONS of Shannon, Tamar, Trent, Men of the Lothians, Men of Kent, Essex, Wessex, shore and shire, Mates of the net, the mine, the fire, Lads of the wheel and desk and loom, Noble and trader, squire and groom, Come where the bugles of England play, “Over the hills and far away!” Southern Cross and […]
A Love By The Sea by William Ernest Henley
Out of the starless night that covers me, (O tribulation of the wind that rolls!) Black as the cloud of some tremendous spell, The susurration of the sighing sea Sounds like the sobbing whisper of two souls That tremble in a passion of farewell. To the desires that trebled life in me, (O melancholy of […]
A Late Lark Twitters From The Quiet Skies by William Ernest Henley
the quiet skies: And from the west, Where the sun, his day’s work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, gray city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace. The smoke ascends In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires Shine and are changed. In the valley Shadows rise. The lark sings on. […]
A Dainty Thing’s The Villanelle by William Ernest Henley
A DAINTY thing’s the Villanelle, Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme, It serves its purpose passing well. A double-clappered silver bell That must be made to clink in chime, A dainty thing’s the Villanelle; And if you wish to flute a spell, Or ask a meeting ‘neath the lime, It serves its purpose passing well. […]
Blithe Dreams Arise To Greet Us by William Ernest Henley
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’erblown with sunny shadows, O’ersped with winds at play, The woodlands and the meadows Are keeping holiday. Wild foals are scampering, neighing, Brave merles their hautboys blow: Come! let […]
Beside The Idle Summer Sea by William Ernest Henley
Beside the idle summer sea, And in the vacant summer days, Light Love came fluting down the ways, Where you were loitering with me. Who have not welcomed even as we, That jocund minstrel and his lays Beside the idle summer sea And in the vacant summer days? We listened, we were fancy-free; And lo! […]
Ballade Of Youth And Age by William Ernest Henley
Spring at her height on a morn at prime, Sails that laugh from a flying squall, Pomp of harmony, rapture of rhyme – Youth is the sign of them, one and all. Winter sunsets and leaves that fall, An empty flagon, a folded page, A tumble-down wheel, a tattered ball – These are a type […]
Ballade Of Truisms by William Ernest Henley
Gold or silver, every day, Dies to gray. There are knots in every skein. Hours of work and hours of play Fade away Into one immense Inane. Shadow and substance, chaff and grain, Are as vain As the foam or as the spray. Life goes crooning, faint and fain, One refrain: ‘If it could be […]
Ballade Of A Toyokuni Colour-Print by William Ernest Henley
Was I a Samurai renowned, Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow? A histrion angular and profound? A priest? a porter?–Child, although I have forgotten clean, I know That in the shade of Fujisan, What time the cherry-orchards blow, I loved you once in old Japan. As here you loiter, flowing-gowned And hugely sashed, with pins a-row […]
Ballade Of Midsummer Days And Nights by William Ernest Henley
With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise, And the winds are one with the clouds and beams – Midsummer days! Midsummer days! The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze, While the West from a rapture of sunset rights, Faint stars their exquisite […]
Ballade Made In The Hot Weather by William Ernest Henley
Fountains that frisk and sprinkle The moss they overspill; Pools that the breezes crinkle; The wheel beside the mill, With its wet, weedy frill; Wind-shadows in the wheat; A water-cart in the street; The fringe of foam that girds An islet’s ferneries; A green sky’s minor thirds – To live, I think of these! Of […]
Back-View by William Ernest Henley
I watched you saunter down the sand: Serene and large, the golden weather Flowed radiant round your peacock feather, And glistered from your jewelled hand. Your tawny hair, turned strand on strand And bound with blue ribands together, Streaked the rough tartan, green like heather, That round your lissome shoulder spanned. Your grace was quick […]
Attadale, West Highlands by William Ernest Henley
A black and glassy float, opaque and still, The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep, Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill; Heather, and corn, and wisps of loitering haze; The wee white cots, black-hatted, plumed with smoke; The braes beyond–and when the ripple awoke, They […]
Arabian Night’s Entertainments by William Ernest Henley
Once on a time There was a little boy: a master-mage By virtue of a Book Of magic–O, so magical it filled His life with visionary pomps Processional! And Powers Passed with him where he passed. And Thrones And Dominations, glaived and plumed and mailed, Thronged in the criss-cross streets, The palaces pell-mell with playing-fields, […]
Apparition by William Ernest Henley
Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably, Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face – Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, The brown eyes radiant with vivacity – There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of passion and impudence and energy. […]
Anterotics by William Ernest Henley
Laughs the happy April morn Thro’ my grimy, little window, And a shaft of sunshine pushes Thro’ the shadows in the square. Dogs are tracing thro’ the grass, Crows are cawing round the chimneys, In and out among the washing Goes the West at hide-and-seek. Loud and cheerful clangs the bell. Here the nurses troop […]
Andante Con Moto by William Ernest Henley
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 and jangle of unrests, Let us take horse, Dear Heart, take horse and win – As from swart August to the green lap of May – To quietness and the fresh […]
Allegro Maestoso by William Ernest Henley
Spring winds that blow As over leagues of myrtle-blooms and may; Bevies of spring clouds trooping slow, Like matrons heavy bosomed and aglow With the mild and placid pride of increase! Nay, What makes this insolent and comely stream Of appetence, this freshet of desire (Milk from the wild breasts of the wilful Day!), Down […]
After by William Ernest Henley
Like as a flamelet blanketed in smoke, So through the anaesthetic shows my life; So flashes and so fades my thought, at strife With the strong stupor that I heave and choke And sicken at, it is so foully sweet. Faces look strange from space-and disappear. Far voices, sudden loud, offend my ear – And […]
A Wink From Hesper by William Ernest Henley
A wink from Hesper, falling Fast in the wintry sky, Comes through the even blue, Dear, like a word from you… Is it good-bye? Across the miles between us I send you sigh for sigh. Good-Night, sweet friend, good-night: Till life and all take flight, Never good-bye. ————— The End And that’s the End of […]
A Desolate Shore by William Ernest Henley
A desolate shore, The sinister seduction of the Moon, The menace of the irreclaimable Sea. Flaunting, tawdry and grim, From cloud to cloud along her beat, Leering her battered and inveterate leer, She signals where he prowls in the dark alone, Her horrible old man, Mumbling old oaths and warming His villainous old bones with […]
A Child by William Ernest Henley
A child, Curious and innocent, Slips from his Nurse, and rejoicing Loses himself in the Fair. Thro’ the jostle and din Wandering, he revels, Dreaming, desiring, possessing; Till, of a sudden Tired and afraid, he beholds The sordid assemblage Just as it is; and he runs With a sob to his Nurse (Lighting at last […]
A Bowl Of Roses by William Ernest Henley
It was a bowl of roses: There in the light they lay, Languishing, glorying, glowing Their life away. And the soul of them rose like a presence, Into me crept and grew, And filled me with something-some one- O, was it you ? ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, […]