Read Ebook: Poems by Henley William Ernest

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Ebook has 451 lines and 42948 words, and 10 pages

Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported; Splinted fingers tap the rhythm; And a head all helmed with plasters Wags a measured approbation.

Of their mattress-life oblivious, All the patients, brisk and cheerful, Are encouraging the dancer, And applauding the musician.

Dim the gas-lights in the output Of so many ardent smokers, Full of shadow lurch the corners, And the doctor peeps and passes.

There are, maybe, some suspicions Of an alcoholic presence . . . 'Tak' a sup of this, my wumman!' . . . New Year comes but once a twelvemonth.

HERE in this dim, dull, double-bedded room, I play the father to a brace of boys, Ailing but apt for every sort of noise, Bedfast but brilliant yet with health and bloom. Roden, the Irishman, is 'sieven past,' Blue-eyed, snub-nosed, chubby, and fair of face. Willie's but six, and seems to like the place, A cheerful little collier to the last. They eat, and laugh, and sing, and fight, all day; All night they sleep like dormice. See them play At Operations:--Roden, the Professor, Saws, lectures, takes the artery up, and ties; Willie, self-chloroformed, with half-shut eyes, Holding the limb and moaning--Case and Dresser.

SHE'S tall and gaunt, and in her hard, sad face With flashes of the old fun's animation There lowers the fixed and peevish resignation Bred of a past where troubles came apace. She tells me that her husband, ere he died, Saw seven of their children pass away, And never knew the little lass at play Out on the green, in whom he's deified. Her kin dispersed, her friends forgot and gone, All simple faith her honest Irish mind, Scolding her spoiled young saint, she labours on: Telling her dreams, taking her patients' part, Trailing her coat sometimes: and you shall find No rougher, quainter speech, nor kinder heart.

XX VISITOR

HER little face is like a walnut shell With wrinkling lines; her soft, white hair adorns Her withered brows in quaint, straight curls, like horns; And all about her clings an old, sweet smell. Prim is her gown and quakerlike her shawl. Well might her bonnets have been born on her. Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother The subject of a strong religious call? In snow or shine, from bed to bed she runs, All twinkling smiles and texts and pious tales, Her mittened hands, that ever give or pray, Bearing a sheaf of tracts, a bag of buns: A wee old maid that sweeps the Bridegroom's way, Strong in a cheerful trust that never fails.

'TALK of pluck!' pursued the Sailor, Set at euchre on his elbow, 'I was on the wharf at Charleston, Just ashore from off the runner.

'It was grey and dirty weather, And I heard a drum go rolling, Rub-a-dubbing in the distance, Awful dour-like and defiant.

'In and out among the cotton, Mud, and chains, and stores, and anchors, Tramped a squad of battered scarecrows-- Poor old Dixie's bottom dollar!

'Rags and tatters, belts and bayonets, On they swung, the drum a-rolling, Mum and sour. It looked like fighting, And they meant it too, by thunder!'

IT'S the Spring. Earth has conceived, and her bosom, Teeming with summer, is glad.

Vistas of change and adventure, Thro' the green land The grey roads go beckoning and winding, Peopled with wains, and melodious With harness-bells jangling: Jangling and twangling rough rhythms To the slow march of the stately, great horses Whistled and shouted along.

White fleets of cloud, Argosies heavy with fruitfulness, Sail the blue peacefully. Green flame the hedgerows. Blackbirds are bugling, and white in wet winds Sway the tall poplars. Pageants of colour and fragrance, Pass the sweet meadows, and viewless Walks the mild spirit of May, Visibly blessing the world.

It's the Spring. A sprightliness feeble and squalid Wakes in the ward, and I sicken, Impotent, winter at heart.

DOWN the quiet eve, Thro' my window with the sunset Pipes to me a distant organ Foolish ditties;

And, as when you change Pictures in a magic lantern, Books, beds, bottles, floor, and ceiling Fade and vanish,

And I'm well once more . . . August flares adust and torrid, But my heart is full of April Sap and sweetness.

In the quiet eve I am loitering, longing, dreaming . . . Dreaming, and a distant organ Pipes me ditties.

I can see the shop, I can smell the sprinkled pavement, Where she serves--her chestnut chignon Thrills my senses!

O, the sight and scent, Wistful eve and perfumed pavement! In the distance pipes an organ . . . The sensation

Comes to me anew, And my spirit for a moment Thro' the music breathes the bless?d Airs of London.

STARING corpselike at the ceiling, See his harsh, unrazored features, Ghastly brown against the pillow, And his throat--so strangely bandaged!

Lack of work and lack of victuals, A debauch of smuggled whisky, And his children in the workhouse Made the world so black a riddle

That he plunged for a solution; And, although his knife was edgeless, He was sinking fast towards one, When they came, and found, and saved him.

Stupid now with shame and sorrow, In the night I hear him sobbing. But sometimes he talks a little. He has told me all his troubles.

In his broad face, tanned and bloodless, White and wild his eyeballs glisten; And his smile, occult and tragic, Yet so slavish, makes you shudder!

THIN-LEGGED, thin-chested, slight unspeakably, Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face-- Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race, Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea, The brown eyes radiant with vivacity-- There shines a brilliant and romantic grace, A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace Of passion and impudence and energy. Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist: A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, And something of the Shorter-Catechist.

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!

AT the barren heart of midnight, When the shadow shuts and opens As the loud flames pulse and flutter, I can hear a cistern leaking.

Dripping, dropping, in a rhythm, Rough, unequal, half-melodious, Like the measures aped from nature In the infancy of music;

Like the buzzing of an insect, Still, irrational, persistent . . . I must listen, listen, listen In a passion of attention;

Till it taps upon my heartstrings, And my very life goes dripping, Dropping, dripping, drip-drip-dropping, In the drip-drop of the cistern.

CARRY me out Into the wind and the sunshine, Into the beautiful world.

O, the wonder, the spell of the streets! The stature and strength of the horses, The rustle and echo of footfalls, The flat roar and rattle of wheels! A swift tram floats huge on us . . . It's a dream? The smell of the mud in my nostrils Blows brave--like a breath of the sea!

As of old, Ambulant, undulant drapery, Vaguery and strangely provocative, Fluttersd and beckons. O, yonder-- Is it?--the gleam of a stocking! Sudden, a spire Wedged in the mist! O, the houses, The long lines of lofty, grey houses, Cross-hatched with shadow and light! These are the streets . . . Each is an avenue leading Whither I will!

Free . . . ! Dizzy, hysterical, faint, I sit, and the carriage rolls on with me Into the wonderful world.

THE OLD INFIRMARY, EDINBURGH, 1873-75

DO you remember That afternoon--that Sunday afternoon!-- When, as the kirks were ringing in, And the grey city teemed With Sabbath feelings and aspects, LEWIS--our LEWIS then, Now the whole world's--and you, Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came, Laden with BALZACS , The first of many times To that transformed back-kitchen where I lay So long, so many centuries-- Or years is it!--ago?

Our ATHOS rests--the wise, the kind, The liberal and august, his fault atoned, Rests in the crowded yard There at the west of Princes Street. We three-- You, I, and LEWIS!--still afoot, Are still together, and our lives, In chime so long, may keep Unjangled till the end.

W. E. H.

THE SONG OF THE SWORD

In the beginning, Ere God inspired Himself Into the clay thing Thumbed to His image, The vacant, the naked shell Soon to be Man: Thoughtful He pondered it, Prone there and impotent, Fragile, inviting Attack and discomfiture; Then, with a smile-- As He heard in the Thunder That laughed over Eden The voice of the Trumpet, The iron Beneficence, Calling his dooms To the Winds of the world-- Stooping, He drew On the sand with His finger A shape for a sign Of his way to the eyes That in wonder should waken, For a proof of His will To the breaking intelligence. That was the birth of me: I am the Sword.

Heroes, my children, Follow, O, follow me! Follow, exulting In the great light that breaks From the sacred Companionship! Thrust through the fatuous, Thrust through the fungous brood, Spawned in my shadow And gross with my gift! Thrust through, and hearken O, hark, to the Trumpet, The Virgin of Battles, Calling, still calling you Into the Presence, Sons of the Judgment, Pure wafts of the Will! Edged to annihilate, Hilted with government, Follow, O, follow me, Till the waste places All the grey globe over Ooze, as the honeycomb Drips, with the sweetness Distilled of my strength, And, teeming in peace Through the wrath of my coming, They give back in beauty The dread and the anguish They had of me visitant! Follow, O follow, then, Heroes, my harvesters! Where the tall grain is ripe Thrust in your sickles! Stripped and adust In a stubble of empire, Scything and binding The full sheaves of sovranty: Thus, O, thus gloriously, Shall you fulfil yourselves! Thus, O, thus mightily, Show yourselves sons of mine-- Yea, and win grace of me: I am the Sword!

I am the feast-maker: Hark, through a noise Of the screaming of eagles, Hark how the Trumpet, The mistress of mistresses, Calls, silver-throated And stern, where the tables Are spread, and the meal Of the Lord is in hand! Driving the darkness, Even as the banners And spears of the Morning; Sifting the nations, The slag from the metal, The waste and the weak From the fit and the strong; Fighting the brute, The abysmal Fecundity; Checking the gross, Multitudinous blunders, The groping, the purblind Excesses in service Of the Womb universal, The absolute drudge; Firing the charactry Carved on the World, The miraculous gem In the seal-ring that burns On the hand of the Master-- Yea! and authority Flames through the dim, Unappeasable Grisliness Prone down the nethermost Chasms of the Void!-- Clear singing, clean slicing; Sweet spoken, soft finishing; Making death beautiful, Life but a coin To be staked in the pastime Whose playing is more Than the transfer of being; Arch-anarch, chief builder, Prince and evangelist, I am the Will of God: I am the Sword.

ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS

I shut mine eyes . . . And lo! A flickering snatch of memory that floats Upon the face of a pool of darkness five And thirty dead years deep, Antic in girlish broideries And skirts and silly shoes with straps And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks Plain in the shadow of a church , Sedate for all his haste To be at home; and, nestled in his arm, Inciting still to quiet and solitude, Boarded in sober drab, With small, square, agitating cuts Let in a-top of the double-columned, close, Quakerlike print, a Book! . . . What but that blessed brief Of what is gallantest and best In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance? The Book of rocs, Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris, Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and calendars, And ghouls, and genies--O, so huge They might have overed the tall Minster Tower Hands down, as schoolboys take a post! In truth, the Book of Camaralzaman, Schemselnihar and Sindbad, Scheherezade The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour, Cairo and Serendib and Candahar, And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk-- Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms-- Of Kaf! . . . That centre of miracles, The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights!

Old friends I had a-many--kindly and grim Familiars, cronies quaint And goblin! Never a Wood but housed Some morrice of dainty dapperlings. No Brook But had his nunnery Of green-haired, silvry-curving sprites, To cabin in his grots, and pace His lilied margents. Every lone Hillside Might open upon Elf-Land. Every Stalk That curled about a Bean-stick was of the breed Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs You climbed beyond the clouds, and found The Farm-House where the Ogre, gorged And drowsy, from his great oak chair, Among the flitches and pewters at the fire, Called for his Fa?ry Harp. And in it flew, And, perching on the kitchen table, sang Jocund and jubilant, with a sound Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals The shy thrush at mid-May Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn; Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still, In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring, For Pan's own whistle, savage and rich and lewd, And mocked him call for call!

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