Chapter 1

Transcribed from the 1907 David Nutt edition by Diarmuid Pigott with some additional material and proofing by David Price, email [email protected]

[Picture: Book cover]

[Picture: Bust of William Ernest Henley]

POEMS

_By_

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

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_The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet_, _Though to itself it only live and die_.

SHAKESPEARE

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_Tenth Impression_

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LONDON _Published by DAVID NUTT_ at the Sign of the Phœnix IN LONG ACRE 1907

_First Edition printed January_ 1898 _Second Edition printed March_ 1898 _Third Edition printed September_ 1898 _Fourth Edition printed January_ 1900 _Fifth Edition printed December_ 1901 _Sixth Impression printed August_ 1903 _Seventh Impression printed 1904 February_ _Eighth Impression printed May_ 1905 _Ninth Impresion printed April_ 1906 _Tenth Impression printed Nov._ 1907

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Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty

_TO MY WIFE_

_Take_, _dear_, _my little sheaf of songs_, _For_, _old or new_, _All that is good in them belongs_ _Only to you_;

_And_, _singing as when all was young_, _They will recall_ _Those others_, _lived but left unsung_— _The bent of all_.

W. E. H

APRIL 1888 SEPTEMBER 1897.

_ADVERTISEMENT_

_My friend and publisher_, _Mr. Alfred Nutt_, _asks me to introduce this re-issue of old work in a new shape_. _At his request_, _then_, _I have to say that nearly all the numbers contained in the present volume are reprinted from_ ‘_A Book of Verses_’ (1888) _and_ ‘_London Voluntaries_’ (1892–3). _From the first of these I have removed some copies of verse which seemed to me scarce worth keeping_; _and I have recovered for it certain others from those publications which had made room for them_. _I have corrected where I could_, _added such dates as I might_, _and_, _by re-arrangement and revision_, _done my best to give my book_, _such as it is_, _its final form_. _If any be displeased by the result_, _I can but submit that my verses are my own_, _and that this is how I would have them read_.

_The work of revision has reminded me that_, _small as is this book of mine_, _it is all in the matter of verse that I have to show for the years between_ 1872 _and_ 1897. _A principal reason is that_, _after spending the better part of my life in the pursuit of poetry_, _I found myself_ (_about_ 1877) _so utterly unmarketable that I had to own myself beaten in art_, _and to addict myself to journalism for the next ten years_. _Came the production by my old friend_, _Mr. H. B. Donkin_, _in his little collection of_ ‘_Voluntaries_’ (1888), _compiled for that East-End Hospital to which he has devoted so much time and energy and skill_, _of those unrhyming rhythms in which I had tried to quintessentialize_, _as_ (_I believe_) _one scarce can do in rhyme_, _my impressions of the Old Edinburgh Infirmary_. _They had long __since been rejected by every editor of standing in London—I had well-nigh said in the world_; _but as soon as Mr. Nutt had read them_, _he entreated me to look for more_. _I did as I was told_; _old dusty sheaves were dragged to light_; _the work of selection and correction was begun_; _I burned much_; _I found that_, _after all_, _the lyrical instinct had slept—not died_; _I ventured_ (_in brief_) ‘_A Book of Verses_.’ _It was received with so much interest that I took heart once more_, _and wrote the numbers presently reprinted from_ ‘_The National Observer_’ _in the collection first_ (1892) _called_ ‘_The Song of the Sword_’ _and afterwards_ (1893), ‘_London voluntaries_.’ _If I have said nothing since_, _it is that I have nothing to say which is not_, _as yet_, _too personal—too personal and too a afflicting—for utterance_.

_For the matter of my book_, _it is there to speak for itself_:—

‘_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_, 4_th_ _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 THE SWORD 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 of Things 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 LONDON VOLUNTARIES I. _Grave_ 185 II. _Andante con Moto_ 187 III. _Scherzando_ 192 IV. _Largo e Mesto_ 186 V. _Allegro Maëstoso_ 200 RHYMES AND RHYTHMS 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.

II WAITING

A SQUARE, squat room (a cellar on promotion), Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight; Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tinware; Scissors and lint and apothecary’s jars.

Here, on a bench a skeleton would writhe from, Angry and sore, I wait to be admitted: Wait till my heart is lead upon my stomach, While at their ease two dressers do their chores.

One has a probe—it feels to me a crowbar. A small boy sniffs and shudders after bluestone. A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers. Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.

III INTERIOR

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

The atmosphere Suggests the trail of a ghostly druggist. Dressings and lint on the long, lean table— Whom are they for?

The patients yawn, Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin. A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles. It’s grim and strange.

Far footfalls clank. The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged. My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . . O, a gruesome world!

IV BEFORE

BEHOLD me waiting—waiting for the knife. A little while, and at a leap I storm The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform, The drunken dark, the little death-in-life. The gods are good to me: I have no wife, No innocent child, to think of as I near The fateful minute; nothing all-too dear Unmans me for my bout of passive strife. Yet am I tremulous and a trifle sick, And, face to face with chance, I shrink a little: My hopes are strong, my will is something weak. Here comes the basket? Thank you. I am ready. But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle: You carry Cæsar and his fortunes—steady!

V OPERATION

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

Then they bid you close your eyelids, And they mask you with a napkin, And the anæsthetic reaches Hot and subtle through your being.

And you gasp and reel and shudder In a rushing, swaying rapture, While the voices at your elbow Fade—receding—fainter—farther.

Lights about you shower and tumble, And your blood seems crystallising— Edged and vibrant, yet within you Racked and hurried back and forward.

Then the lights grow fast and furious, And you hear a noise of waters, And you wrestle, blind and dizzy, In an agony of effort,

Till a sudden lull accepts you, And you sound an utter darkness . . . And awaken . . . with a struggle . . . On a hushed, attentive audience.

VI AFTER

LIKE as a flamelet blanketed in smoke, So through the anæsthetic 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 hush as sudden. Then my senses fleet: All were a blank, save for this dull, new pain That grinds my leg and foot; and brokenly Time and the place glimpse on to me again; And, unsurprised, out of uncertainty, I wake—relapsing—somewhat faint and fain, To an immense, complacent dreamery.

VII VIGIL

LIVED on one’s back, In the long hours of repose, Life is a practical nightmare— Hideous asleep or awake.

Shoulders and loins Ache - - - ! Ache, and the mattress, Run into boulders and hummocks, Glows like a kiln, while the bedclothes— Tumbling, importunate, daft— Ramble and roll, and the gas, Screwed to its lowermost, An inevitable atom of light, Haunts, and a stertorous sleeper Snores me to hate and despair.

All the old time Surges malignant before me; Old voices, old kisses, old songs Blossom derisive about me; While the new days Pass me in endless procession: A pageant of shadows Silently, leeringly wending On . . . and still on . . . still on!

Far in the stillness a cat Languishes loudly. A cinder Falls, and the shadows Lurch to the leap of the flame. The next man to me Turns with a moan; and the snorer, The drug like a rope at his throat, Gasps, gurgles, snorts himself free, as the night-nurse, Noiseless and strange, Her bull’s eye half-lanterned in apron, (Whispering me, ‘Are ye no sleepin’ yet?’), Passes, list-slippered and peering, Round . . . and is gone.

Sleep comes at last— Sleep full of dreams and misgivings— Broken with brutal and sordid Voices and sounds that impose on me, Ere I can wake to it, The unnatural, intolerable day.

VIII STAFF-NURSE: OLD STYLE

THE greater masters of the commonplace, REMBRANDT and good SIR WALTER—only these Could paint her all to you: experienced ease And antique liveliness and ponderous grace; The sweet old roses of her sunken face; The depth and malice of her sly, grey eyes; The broad Scots tongue that flatters, scolds, defies; The thick Scots wit that fells you like a mace. These thirty years has she been nursing here, Some of them under SYME, her hero still. Much is she worth, and even more is made of her. Patients and students hold her very dear. The doctors love her, tease her, use her skill. They say ‘The Chief’ himself is half-afraid of her.

IX LADY-PROBATIONER

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 yet acquainted, it would seem, with tears; A comely shape; a slim, high-coloured hand, Graced, rather oddly, with a signet ring; A bashful air, becoming everything; A well-bred silence always at command. Her plain print gown, prim cap, and bright steel chain Look out of place on her, and I remain Absorbed in her, as in a pleasant mystery. Quick, skilful, quiet, soft in speech and touch . . . ‘Do you like nursing?’ ‘Yes, Sir, very much.’ Somehow, I rather think she has a history.

X STAFF-NURSE: NEW STYLE

BLUE-EYED and bright of face but waning fast Into the sere of virginal decay, I view her as she enters, day by day, As a sweet sunset almost overpast. Kindly and calm, patrician to the last, Superbly falls her gown of sober gray, And on her chignon’s elegant array The plainest cap is somehow touched with caste. She talks BEETHOVEN; frowns disapprobation At BALZAC’S name, sighs it at ‘poor GEORGE SAND’S’; Knows that she has exceeding pretty hands; Speaks Latin with a right accentuation; And gives at need (as one who understands) Draught, counsel, diagnosis, exhortation.

XI CLINICAL

HIST? . . . Through the corridor’s echoes, Louder and nearer Comes a great shuffling of feet. Quick, every one of you, Strighten your quilts, and be decent! Here’s the Professor.

In he comes first With the bright look we know, From the broad, white brows the kind eyes Soothing yet nerving you. Here at his elbow, White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse, Towel on arm and her inkstand Fretful with quills. Here in the ruck, anyhow, Surging along, Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs— Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles— Hustles the Class! And they ring themselves Round the first bed, where the Chief (His dressers and clerks at attention), Bends in inspection already.

So shows the ring Seen from behind round a conjurer Doing his pitch in the street. High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones, Round, square, and angular, serry and shove; While from within a voice, Gravely and weightily fluent, Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly (Look at the stress of the shoulders!) Out of a quiver of silence, Over the hiss of the spray, Comes a low cry, and the sound Of breath quick intaken through teeth Clenched in resolve. And the Master Breaks from the crowd, and goes, Wiping his hands, To the next bed, with his pupils Flocking and whispering behind him.

Now one can see. Case Number One Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes Stripped up, and showing his foot (Alas for God’s Image!) Swaddled in wet, white lint Brilliantly hideous with red.

XII ETCHING

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 wan and sunken, And his eyes are large and brilliant, And his shoulder-blades are sharp, And his knees.

He is weak of wits, religious, Full of sentiment and yearning, Gentle, faded—with a cough And a snore. When his wife (who was a widow, And is many years his elder) Fails to write, and that is always, He desponds.

Let his melancholy wander, And he’ll tell you pretty stories Of the women that have wooed him Long ago; Or he’ll sing of bonnie lasses Keeping sheep among the heather, With a crackling, hackling click In his voice.

XIII CASUALTY

AS with varnish red and glistening Dripped his hair; his feet looked rigid; Raised, he settled stiffly sideways: You could see his hurts were spinal.

He had fallen from an engine, And been dragged along the metals. It was hopeless, and they knew it; So they covered him, and left him.

As he lay, by fits half sentient, Inarticulately moaning, With his stockinged soles protruded Stark and awkward from the blankets,