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William Ernest Henley

37 quotes

• “Ho! then, the splendour And sheen of my ministry, Clothing the earth With a livery of lightnings! Ho! then, the music Of battles in onset And ruining armours, And God's gift returning In fury to God! Glittering and keen As the song of the winter stars, Ho! then, the sound Of my voice, the implacable Angel of Destiny!— I am the Sword.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Song of the Sword, and Other Verses (London: David Nutt, 1892), title poem

• “Hark how the Trumpet, The mistress of mistresses, Calls, silver-throated And stern, where the tables Are spread, and the work 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.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) first seen 1892 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Song of the Sword, &c. (1892) title poem

• “Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Far in the stillness a cat Languishes loudly. A cinder Falls, and the shadows Lurch to the leap of the flame.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “From the winter's gray despair, From the summer’s golden languor, Death, the lover of Life, Frees us for ever.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) first seen 1875 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Life and Death" (Echoes), IV (1875)

• “Night with her train of stars And her great gift of sleep.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) first seen 1876 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Life and Death (Echoes)", XXXIV. "Margaritæ Sorori, I. M." (1876)

• “So be my passing! My task accomplish'd and the long day done, My wages taken, and in my heart Some late lark singing, Let me be gather'd to the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene, Death.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Or ever the knightly years were gone With the old world to the grave, I was a king in Babylon, And you were a Christian slave.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I captain an army Of shining and generous dreams.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “As dust that drives, as straws that blow, Into the night go one and all.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Friends.. old friends... One sees how it ends. A woman looks Or a man tells lies, And the pleasant brooks And the quiet skies, Ruined with brawling And caterwauling, Enchant no more As they did before; And so it ends With friends.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And, forgive and forget Or canker and fret, We can be no more As we were before. When it ends it ends With friends.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There let it rest. It has fought and won, And is still the best That either has done. Each as he stands The work of its hands, Which shall be more As he was before? What is it ends With friends?”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) first seen 1891 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 3rd ed. (New York: Scribner & Welford, 1891) pp. 111–112. Not in the 1st ed. (1891)

• “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.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) first seen 1877 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Echoes", IX. "To W. R." (1877)

• “Those incantations of the Spring That made the heart a centre of miracles Grow formal, and the wonder-working bours Arise no more — no more.Something is dead... 'Tis time to creep in close about the fire And tell grey tales of what we were, and dream Old dreams and faded, and as we may rejoice In the young life that round us leaps and laughs, A fountain in the sunshine, in the pride Of God's best gift that to us twain returns, Dear Heart, no more — no more.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We are the Choice of the Will: God, when He gave the word That called us into line, set in our hand a sword;Set us a sword to wield none else could lift and draw, And bade us forth to the sound of the trumpet of the Law.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “East and west and north, wherever the battle grew, As men to a feast we fared, the work of the Will to do.Bent upon vast beginnings, bidding anarchy cease — (Had we hacked it to the Pit, we had left it a place of peace!) —Marching, building, sailing, pillar of cloud or fire, Sons of the Will, we fought the fight of the Will, our sire.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Who says that we shall pass, or the fame of us fade and die, While the living stars fulfil their round in the living sky?”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Failing yet gracious, Slow pacing, soon homing, A patriarch that strolls Through the tents of his children, The sun as he journeys His round on the lower Ascents of the blue, Washes the roofs And the hillsides with clarity.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Some starlit garden grey with dew, Some chamber flushed with wine and fire, What matters where, so I and you Are worthy our desire?”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Think on the shame of dreams for deeds, The scandal of unnatural strife, The slur upon immortal needs, The treason done to life:Arise! no more a living lie, And with me quicken and control Some memory that shall magnify The universal Soul.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Time's right-hand man, the sea Laughs as in joy From his millions of wrinkles: Laughs that his destiny, Great with the greatness Of triumphing order, Shows as a dwarf By the strength of his heart And the might of his hands.Master of masters, O maker of heroes, Thunder the brave, Irresistible message: — 'Life is worth Living Through every grain of it, From the foundations To the last edge Of the cornerstone, death.'”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “You played and sang a snatch of song, A song that all-too well we knew; But whither had flown the ancient wrong; And was it really I and you? O, since the end of life's to live And pay in pence the common debt, What should it cost us to forgive Whose daily task is to forget?”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Dear, was it really you and I? In truth the riddle's ill to read, So many are the deaths we die Before we can be dead indeed.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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!”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “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.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “What have I done for you, England, my England? What is there I would not do, England, my own?”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “My songs were once of the sunrise: They shouted it over the bar; First-footing the dawns, they flourished, And flamed with the morning star.My songs are now of the sunset: Their brows are touched with light, But their feet are lost in the shadows And wet with the dews of night.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Life — life — life! 'Tis the sole great thing This side of death, Heart on heart in the wonder of Spring!”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb. Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire. Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.So man and woman will keep their trust, Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.Yea, each with the other will lose and win, Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife, And the word of Love is the Word of Life.And they that go with the Word unsaid, Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Into a land Storm-wrought, a place of quakes, all thunder-scarred, Helpless, degraded, desolate, Peace, the White Angel, comes. Her eyes are as a mother's. Her good hands Are comforting, and helping; and her voice Falls on the heart, as, after Winter, Spring Falls on the World, and there is no more pain.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “All over the world, the nation, in a dream Of money and love and sport, hangs at the paps Of well-being, and so Goes fattening, mellowing, dozing, rotting down Into a rich deliquium of decay.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A people, haggard with defeat, Asks if there be a God; yet sets its teeth, Faces calamity, and goes into the fire Another than it was. And in wild hours A people, roaring ripe With victory, rises, menaces, stands renewed, Sheds its old piddling aims, Approves its virtue, puts behind itself The comfortable dream, and goes, Armoured and militant, New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps To those great altitudes, whereat the weak Live not. But only the strong Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) said by 1903 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Plainly Hugo was the greatest man of letters of his day. It has been given to few or none to live a life so full of effort and achievement, so rich in honour and success and fame. Born almost with the century, he was a writer at fifteen, and at his death he was writing still; so that the record of his career embraces a period of more than sixty years. There is hardly a department of art to a foremost place in which he did not prove his right. From first to last; from the time of Chateaubriand to the time of Zola, he was a leader of men; and with his departure from the scene the undivided sovereignty of literature became a thing of the past like Alexander's empire.”

  William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) first seen 1890 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Views and Reviews: Essays in Appreciation (London: David Nutt, 1890), "Hugo", pp. 63–64