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
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
O, Falmouth Is a Fine Town
O Falmouth is a fine town with ships in the bay,
And I wish from my heart it's there I was to-day;
I wish from my heart I was far away from here,
Sitting in my parlor and talking to my dear.
For it's home, dearie home-it's home I want to be.
Our topsails are hoisted, and we'll away to sea.
O the oak and the ash and the bonnie birken tree,
They're all growing green in the old countrie.
In Baltimore a-walking a lady I did meet
With her babe on her arm as she came down the street;
And I thought how I sailed, and the cradle standing ready
For the pretty little babe that has never seen its daddie.
And it's home, dearie, home,-
O, if it be a lass, she shall wear a golden ring;
And if it be a lad, he shall fight for his king;
With his dirk and his hat and his little jacket blue
He shall walk the quarter-deck as his daddie used to do.
And it's home, dearie, home-
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Last Post
THE day's high work is over and done,
And these no more will need the sun:
Blow, you bugles of England, blow!
These are gone where all must go,
Mightily gone from the field they won.
So in the workaday wear of battle,
Touched to glory with God's own red,
Bear we our chosen to their bed!
Settle them lovingly where they fell,
In that good lap they loved so well;
And, their deliveries to the dear Lord said,
And the last desperate volleys ranged and sped,
Blow, you bugles of England, blow,
Over the camps of her beaten foe --
Blow glory and pity to the victor Mother,
Sad, O sad in her sacrificial dead!
Labour, and love, and strife, and mirth,
They gave their part in this kindly earth --
Blow, you bugles of England, blow!
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Desolate Shore
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 villainous talk -
The secrets of their grisly housekeeping
Since they went out upon the pad
In the first twilight of self-conscious Time:
Growling, hideous and hoarse,
Tales of unnumbered Ships,
Goodly and strong, Companions of the Advance,
In some vile alley of the night
Waylaid and bludgeoned -
Dead.
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Blithe Dreams Arise To Greet Us
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 us go a-maying
As in the Long-Ago.
Here we but peak and dwindle:
The clank of chain and crane,
The whir of crank and spindle
Bewilder heart and brain;
The ends of our endeavour
Are merely wealth and fame,
Yet in the still Forever
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
What Have I Done For You
What have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear
As the Song on your bugles blown,
England -
Round the world on your bugles blown!
Where shall the watchful Sun,
England, my England,
Match the master-work you've done,
England, my own?
When shall he rejoice agen
Such a breed of mighty men
As come forward, one to ten,
To the Song on your bugles blown,
England -
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Pro Rege Nostro
WHAT have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear
As the Song on your bugles blown, England --
Round the world on your bugles blown!
Where shall the watchful Sun,
England, my England,
Match the master-work you've done,
England, my own?
When shall he rejoice again
Such a breed of mighty men
As come forward, one to ten,
To the Song on your bugles blown, England --
Down the years on your bugles blown?
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Midsummer Midnight Skies
Midsummer midnight skies,
Midsummer midnight influences and airs,
The shining, sensitive silver of the sea
Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;
And all so solemnly still I seem to hear
The breathing of Life and Death,
The secular Accomplices,
Renewing the visible miracle of the world.
The wistful stars
Shine like good memories. The young morning wind
Blows full of unforgotten hours
As over a region of roses. Life and Death
Sound on--sound on . . . And the night magical,
Troubled yet comforting, thrills
As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart
Of the wood's dark wonderment
Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks
With exquisite visitants:
Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Tree, Old Tree Of The Triple Crook
Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Crook
And the rope of the Black Election,
'Tis the faith of the Fool that a race you rule
Can never achieve perfection:
So 'It's O, for the time of the new Sublime
And the better than human way,
When the Rat (poor beast) shall come to his own
And the Wolf shall have his day!'
For Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Beam
And the power of provocation,
You have cockered the Brute with your dreadful fruit
Till your fruit is mere stupration:
And 'It's how should we rise to be pure and wise,
And how can we choose but fall,
So long as the Hangman makes us dread,
And the Noose floats free for all?'
So Tree, Old Tree of the Triple Coign
And the trick there's no recalling,
[...] Read more
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!