The Spring, My Dear
The spring, my dear,
Is no longer spring.
Does the blackbird sing
What he sang last year?
Are the skies the old
Immemorial blue?
Or am I, or are you,
Grown cold?
Though life be change,
It is hard to bear
When the old sweet air
Sounds forced and strange.
To be out of tune,
Plain You and I . . .
It were better to die,
And soon!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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To Me At My Fifth-Floor Window
To me at my fifth-floor window
The chimney-pots in rows
Are sets of pipes pandean
For every wind that blows;
And the smoke that whirls and eddies
In a thousand times and keys
Is really a visible music
Set to my reveries.
O monstrous pipes, melodious
With fitful tune and dream,
The clouds are your only audience,
Her thought is your only theme!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Gull In An Aery Morrice
Gulls in an aery morrice
Gleam and vanish and gleam . . .
The full sea, sleepily basking,
Dreams under skies of dream.
Gulls in an aery morrice
Circle and swoop and close . . .
Fuller and ever fuller
The rose of the morning blows.
Gulls, in an aery morrice
Frolicking, float and fade . . .
O, the way of a bird in the sunshine,
The way of a man with a maid!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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I Gave My Heart To A Woman
I gave my heart to a woman –
I gave it her, branch and root.
She bruised, she wrung, she tortured,
She cast it under foot.
Under her feet she cast it,
She trampled it where it fell,
She broke it all to pieces,
And each was a clot of hell.
There in the rain and the sunshine
They lay and smouldered long;
And each, when again she viewed them,
Had turned to a living song.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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One With The Ruined Sunset
One with the ruined sunset,
The strange forsaken sands,
What is it waits, and wanders,
And signs with desparate hands?
What is it calls in the twilight -
Calls as its chance were vain?
The cry of a gull sent seaward
Or the voice of an ancient pain?
The red ghost of the sunset,
It walks them as its own,
These dreary and desolate reaches . . .
But O, that it walked alone!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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There Is A Wheel Inside My Head
There is a wheel inside my head
Of wantonness and wine,
An old, cracked fiddle is begging without,
But the wind with scents of the sea is fed,
And the sun seems glad to shine.
The sun and the wind are akin to you,
As you are akin to June.
But the fiddle! . . . It giggles and twitters about,
And, love and laughter! who gave him the cue? -
He's playing your favourite tune.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Praise The Generous Gods
Praise the generous gods for giving
In a world of wrath and strife,
With a little time for living,
Unto all the joy of life.
At whatever source we drink it,
Art or life or faith or wine,
In whatever terms we think it,
It is common and divine.
Praise the high gods, for in giving
This for man, and this alone,
They have made his chance for living
Shine the equal of their own.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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The Sands Are Alive With Sunshine
The sands are alive with sunshine,
The bathers lounge and throng,
And out in the bay a bugle
Is lilting a gallant song.
The clouds go racing eastward,
The blithe wind cannot rest,
And a shard on the shingle flashes
Like the shining soul of a jest;
While children romp in the surges,
And sweethearts wander free,
And the Firth as with laughter dimples . . .
I would it were deep over me!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Anterotics
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 to breakfast.
Handsome, ugly, all are women . . .
O, the Spring-the Spring-the Spring!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Anterotics
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 to breakfast.
Handsome, ugly, all are women . . .
O, the Spring--the Spring--the Spring!
poem by William Ernest Henley
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