Poems by William Ernest Henley Part 7

DOUBLE BALLADE OF LIFE AND FATE

Fools may pine, and sots may swill, Cynics gibe, and prophets rail, Moralists may scourge and drill, Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail.

Let them whine, or threat, or wail!

Till the touch of Circ.u.mstance Down to darkness sink the scale, Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

What if skies be wan and chill?

What if winds be harsh and stale?

Presently the east will thrill, And the sad and shrunken sail, Bellying with a kindly gale, Bear you sunwards, while your chance Sends you back the hopeful hail:- 'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Idle shot or coming bill, Hapless love or broken bail, Gulp it (never chew your pill!), And, if Burgundy should fail, Try the humbler pot of ale!

Over all is heaven's expanse.

Gold's to find among the shale.

Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

Dull Sir Joskin sleeps his fill, Good Sir Galahad seeks the Grail, Proud Sir Pertinax flaunts his frill, Hard Sir AEger dints his mail; And the while by hill and dale Tristram's braveries gleam and glance, And his blithe horn tells its tale:- 'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Araminta's grand and shrill, Delia's pa.s.sionate and frail, Doris drives an earnest quill, Athanasia takes the veil: Wiser Phyllis o'er her pail, At the heart of all romance Reading, sings to Strephon's flail:- 'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Every Jack must have his Jill (Even Johnson had his Thrale!): Forward, couples--with a will!

This, the world, is not a jail.

Hear the music, sprat and whale!

Hands across, retire, advance!

Though the doomsman's on your trail, Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

Envoy

Boys and girls, at slug and snail And their kindred look askance.

Pay your footing on the nail: Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

DOUBLE BALLADE OF THE NOTHINGNESS OF THINGS

The big teetotum twirls, And epochs wax and wane As chance subsides or swirls; But of the loss and gain The sum is always plain.

Read on the mighty pall, The weed of funeral That covers praise and blame, The -isms and the -anities, Magnificence and shame:- 'O Vanity of Vanities!'

The Fates are subtile girls!

They give us chaff for grain.

And Time, the Thunderer, hurls, Like bolted death, disdain At all that heart and brain Conceive, or great or small, Upon this earthly ball.

Would you be knight and dame?

Or woo the sweet humanities?

Or ill.u.s.trate a name?

O Vanity of Vanities!

We sound the sea for pearls, Or drown them in a drain; We flute it with the merles, Or tug and sweat and strain; We grovel, or we reign; We saunter, or we brawl; We answer, or we call; We search the stars for Fame, Or sink her subterranities; The legend's still the same:- 'O Vanity of Vanities!'

Here at the wine one birls, There some one clanks a chain.

The flag that this man furls That man to float is fain.

Pleasure gives place to pain: These in the kennel crawl, While others take the wall.

SHE has a glorious aim, HE lives for the inanities.

What comes of every claim?

O Vanity of Vanities!

Alike are clods and earls.

For sot, and seer, and swain, For emperors and for churls, For antidote and bane, There is but one refrain: But one for king and thrall, For David and for Saul, For fleet of foot and lame, For pieties and profanities, The picture and the frame:- 'O Vanity of Vanities!'

Life is a smoke that curls - Curls in a flickering skein, That winds and whisks and whirls A figment thin and vain, Into the vast Inane.

One end for hut and hall!

One end for cell and stall!

Burned in one common flame Are wisdoms and insanities.

For this alone we came:- 'O Vanity of Vanities!'

Envoy

Prince, pride must have a fall.

What is the worth of all Your state's supreme urbanities?

Bad at the best's the game.

Well might the Sage exclaim:- 'O Vanity of Vanities!'

AT QUEENSFERRY--To W. G. S.

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 gla.s.s, without a sign Of life or death, two spits of sand between.

Water and sky merged blank in mist together, The Fort loomed spectral, and the Guards.h.i.+p's spars Traced vague, black shadows on the s.h.i.+mmery glaze: We felt the dim, strange years, the grey, strange weather, The still, strange land, unvexed of sun or stars, Where Lancelot rides clanking thro' the haze.

ORIENTALE

She's an enchanting little Israelite, A world of hidden dimples!--Dusky-eyed, A starry-glancing daughter of the Bride, With hair escaped from some Arabian Night, Her lip is red, her cheek is golden-white, Her nose a scimitar; and, set aside The bamboo hat she c.o.c.ks with so much pride, Her dress a dream of daintiness and delight.

And when she pa.s.ses with the dreadful boys And romping girls, the c.o.c.kneys loud and crude, My thought, to the Minories tied yet moved to range The Land o' the Sun, commingles with the noise Of magian drums and scents of sandalwood A touch Sidonian--modern--taking--strange!

IN FISHERROW