William Ernest Henley
William Ernest Henley
William Ernest Henleywas an influential poet, critic and editor of the late-Victorian era in England that is spoken of as having as central a role in his time as Samuel Johnson had in the eighteenth century. He is remembered most often for his 1875 poem "Invictus," a piece which recurs in popular awareness. It is one of his hospital poems from early battles with tuberculosis and is said to have developed the artistic motif of poet as a patient, and...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth23 August 1849
fear soul atheism
I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
labyrinth scandal retreat
The life of Dumas is not only a monument of endeavour and success, it is a sort of labyrinth as well. It abounds in pseudonyms and disguises, in sudden and unexpected appearances and retreats as unexpected and sudden, in scandals and in rumours, in mysteries and traps and ambuscades of every kind.
song spring heart
The nightingale has a lyre of gold, The lark's is a clarion call, And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute, But I love him best of all. For his song is all the joy of life, And we in the mad spring weather, We two have listened till he sang Our hearts and lips together.
sky larks quiet
A late lark twitters from the quiet skies.
life wind storm
Life - life - let there be life! Better a thousand times the roaring hours When wave and wind, Like the Arch-Murderer in flight From the Avenger at his heel, Storm through the desolate fastnesses And wild waste places of the world!
death pieces rooms
Madam Life's a piece in bloom Death goes dogging everywhere: she's the tenant of the room, he's the ruffian on the stair.
life spring heart
Life - life - life! 'Tis the sole great thing This side of death, Heart on heart in the wonder of Spring!
death summer mother
Into the winter's gray delight, Into the summer's golden dream, Holy and high and impartial, Death, the mother of Life, Mingles all men for ever.
life-and-death friendly medical
And lo, the Hospital, gray, quiet, old, Where life and death like friendly chafferers meet.
unconquerable-will statistics chance
Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
hey tables napkins
[T]hey stretch you on a table. Then they bid you close your eyelids, And they mask you with a napkin, And the anæsthetic reaches Hot and subtle through your being.
stars sleep night
Night with her train of stars And her great gift of sleep.
life dream fighting
Life - give me life until the end, That at the very top of being, The battle-spirit shouting in my blood, Out of the reddest hell of the fight I may be snatched and flung Into the everlasting lull, The immortal, incommunicable dream.
men done pity
Men there have been who have done the essayist's part so well as to have earned an immortality in the doing; but we have had not many of them, and they make but a poor figure on our shelves. It is a pity that things should be thus with us, for a good essayist is the pleasantest companion imaginable.