Poems by William Ernest Henley Part 11

IX--To W. R.

Madam Life's a piece in bloom Death goes d.o.g.g.i.ng everywhere: She's the tenant of the room, He's the ruffian on the stair.

You shall see her as a friend, You shall bilk him once and twice; But he'll trap you in the end, And he'll stick you for her price.

With his kneebones at your chest, And his knuckles in your throat, You would reason--plead--protest!

Clutching at her petticoat;

But she's heard it all before, Well she knows you've had your fun, Gingerly she gains the door, And your little job is done.

1877

X

The sea is full of wandering foam, The sky of driving cloud; My restless thoughts among them roam . . .

The night is dark and loud.

Where are the hours that came to me So beautiful and bright?

A wild wind shakes the wilder sea . . .

O, dark and loud's the night!

1876

XI--To W. R.

Thick is the darkness - Sunward, O, sunward!

Rough is the highway - Onward, still onward!

Dawn harbours surely East of the shadows.

Facing us somewhere Spread the sweet meadows.

Upward and forward!

Time will restore us: Light is above us, Rest is before us.

1876

XII

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!

1875

XIII

Bring her again, O western wind, Over the western sea: Gentle and good and fair and kind, Bring her again to me!

Not that her fancy holds me dear, Not that a hope may be: Only that I may know her near, Wind of the western sea.

1875

XIV

The wan sun westers, faint and slow; The eastern distance glimmers gray; An eerie haze comes creeping low Across the little, lonely bay; And from the sky-line far away About the quiet heaven are spread Mysterious hints of dying day, Thin, delicate dreams of green and red.

And weak, reluctant surges lap And rustle round and down the strand.

No other sound . . . If it should hap, The s.h.i.+p that sails from fairy-land!

The silken shrouds with spells are manned, The hull is magically scrolled, The squat mast lives, and in the sand The gold prow-griffin claws a hold.

It steals to seaward silently; Strange fish-folk follow thro' the gloom; Great wings flap overhead; I see The Castle of the Drowsy Doom Vague thro' the changeless twilight loom, Enchanted, hushed. And ever there She slumbers in eternal bloom, Her cus.h.i.+ons hid with golden hair.

1875

XV

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 s.h.i.+ne.

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.