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After

1849 –

1903

Like as a flamelet blanketed in smoke,
So through the anaesthetic shows my life;
So flashes and so fades my thought, at strife
With the strong stupor that I heave and choke
And sicken at, it is so foully sweet.
Faces look strange from space — and disappear.
Far voices, sudden loud, offend my ear —
And hush as sudden. Then my senses fleet:
All were a blank, save for this dull, new pain
That grinds my leg and foot; and brokenly
Time and the place glimpse on to me again;
And, unsurprised, out of uncertainty,
I awake — relapsing — somewhat faint and fain.
To an immense, complacent dreamery.

From In Hospital (T. B. Mosher, 1908) by William Ernest Henley. This poem is in the public domain.

William Ernest Henley, born August 23, 1849, was an influential British poet, perhaps best known for his poem “Invictus” (1875). He is the author of A Song of Speed (D. Nutt, 1903), Hawthorn & Lavender with Other Verses (D. Nutt, 1901), and For England’s Sake: Verses and Songs in Time of War (D. Nutt, 1900), among others. He died in Woking, England, on July 11, 1903.

About William Ernest Henley

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Invictus

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.

William Ernest Henley

1888

Before

Behold me waiting — waiting for the knife.
A little while, and at a leap I storm
The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform,
The drunken dark, the little death-in-life.
The gods are good to me: I have no wife,
No innocent child, to think of as I near
The fateful minute; nothing all-too dear

William Ernest Henley

1908

We’ll Go No More a-Roving

We’ll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon. 
November glooms are barren beside the dusk of June. 
The summer flowers are faded, the summer thoughts are sere. 
We’ll go no more a-roving, lest worse befall, my dear. 

We’ll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon. 
The song we sang rings hollow, and heavy runs the tune. 
Glad ways and words remembered would shame the wretched year. 
We’ll go no more a-roving, nor dream we did, my dear. 

We’ll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon. 
If yet we walk together, we need not shun the moon.

William Ernest Henley

1893

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