Poems by William Ernest Henley Part 2

XII--ETCHING

Two and thirty is the ploughman.

He's a man of gallant inches, And his hair is close and curly, And his beard; But his face is wan and sunken, And his eyes are large and brilliant, And his shoulder-blades are sharp, And his knees.

He is weak of wits, religious, Full of sentiment and yearning, Gentle, faded--with a cough And a snore.

When his wife (who was a widow, And is many years his elder) Fails to write, and that is always, He desponds.

Let his melancholy wander, And he'll tell you pretty stories Of the women that have wooed him Long ago; Or he'll sing of bonnie la.s.ses Keeping sheep among the heather, With a crackling, hackling click In his voice.

XIII--CASUALTY

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

He had fallen from an engine, And been dragged along the metals.

It was hopeless, and they knew it; So they covered him, and left him.

As he lay, by fits half sentient, Inarticulately moaning, With his stockinged soles protruded Stark and awkward from the blankets,

To his bed there came a woman, Stood and looked and sighed a little, And departed without speaking, As himself a few hours after.

I was told it was his sweetheart.

They were on the eve of marriage.

She was quiet as a statue, But her lip was grey and writhen.

XIV--AVE CAESER!

From the winter's grey despair, From the summer's golden languor, Death, the lover of Life, Frees us for ever.

Inevitable, silent, unseen, Everywhere always, Shadow by night and as light in the day, Signs she at last to her chosen; And, as she waves them forth, Sorrow and Joy Lay by their looks and their voices, Set down their hopes, and are made One in the dim Forever.

Into the winter's grey delight, Into the summer's golden dream, Holy and high and impartial, Death, the mother of Life, Mingles all men for ever.

XV--'THE CHIEF'

His brow spreads large and placid, and his eye Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still.

Soft lines of tranquil thought his face fulfill - His face at once benign and proud and shy.

If envy scout, if ignorance deny, His faultless patience, his unyielding will, Beautiful gentleness and splendid skill, Innumerable grat.i.tudes reply.

His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties, And seems in all his patients to compel Such love and faith as failure cannot quell.

We hold him for another Herakles, Battling with custom, prejudice, disease, As once the son of Zeus with Death and h.e.l.l.

XVI--HOUSE-SURGEON

Exceeding tall, but built so well his height Half-disappears in flow of chest and limb; Moustache and whisker trooper-like in trim; Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hearted; always bright And always punctual--morning, noon, and night; Bland as a Jesuit, sober as a hymn; Humorous, and yet without a touch of whim; Gentle and amiable, yet full of fight.

His piety, though fresh and true in strain, Has not yet whitewashed up his common mood To the dead blank of his particular Schism.

Sweet, unaggressive, tolerant, most humane, Wild artists like his kindly elderhood, And cultivate his mild Philistinism.

XVII--INTERLUDE

O, the fun, the fun and frolic That The Wind that Shakes the Barley Scatters through a penny-whistle Tickled with artistic fingers!

Kate the scrubber (forty summers, Stout but sportive) treads a measure, Grinning, in herself a ballet, Fixed as fate upon her audience.

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 pa.s.ses.

There are, maybe, some suspicions Of an alcoholic presence . . .

'Tak' a sup of this, my wumman!' . . .

New Year comes but once a twelvemonth.

XVIII--CHILDREN: PRIVATE WARD

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.

XVIIII--SCRUBBER