William Ernest Henley

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.

There's a
So grinding, so immitigably sad,
Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad
…Do you not know it yet

The ways of Death are soothing and serene,
And all the words of Death are grave and sweet
From camp and church, the fireside and the street,
She beckons forth – and strife and song have been

Some three, or five, or seven, and thirty years;
A Roman nose; a dimpling double-chin;
Dark eyes and shy that, ignorant of sin,
Are yet acquainted, it would seem, with tears;

You are carried in a basket,
Like a carcase from the shambles,
To the theatre, a
Where they stretch you on a table

His beat lies knee-high through a dust of story— A dust of terror and torture, grief and crime;
Ghosts that are England's wonder, and shame, and glory Throng where he walks, an antic of old time;
A sense of long immedicable tears Were ev...

Two and thirty is the ploughman
He's a man of gallant inches,
And his hair is close and curly,
And his beard;

There's never a delicate nurseling of the year But our huge London hails it, and delights To wear it on her breast or at her ear,
Her days to colour and make sweet her nights
Crocus and daffodil and violet,
Pink, primrose, valley-li...

He's called The General from the brazen craft And dash with which he sneaks a bit of road And all its fares; challenged, or chafed, or chaffed,
Back-answers of the newest he'll explode;
He reins his horses with an air; he treats With sco...

As with varnish red and
Dripped his hair; his feet looked rigid;
Raised, he settled stiffly sideways:
You could see his hurts were spinal

Beside the idle summer sea,
And in the vacant summer days,
Light Love came fluting down the ways,
Where you were loitering with me

Army Reserve; a worshipper of Bobs,
With whom he stripped the smock from Candahar;
Neat as his mount, that neatest among cobs;
Whenever pageants pass, or meetings are,