William Ernest Henley: Все стихи поэта

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Vigil

Lived on one's back,

In the long hours of repose,

Life is a practical nightmare -

Hideous asleep or awake.

Shoulders and loins

Ache—- -!

Ache, and the mattress,

Run into boulders and hummocks,

by William Ernest Henley

Lady Probationer

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;

A comely shape; a slim, high-coloured hand,

Graced, rather oddly, with a signet ring;

A bashful air, becoming everything;

A well-bred silence always at command.

by William Ernest Henley

Visitor

Her little face is like a walnut shell

With wrinkling lines; her soft, white hair adorns

Her withered brows in quaint, straight curls, like horns;

And all about her clings an old, sweet smell.

Prim is her gown and quakerlike her shawl.

Well might her bonnets have been born on her.

Can you conceive a Fairy Godmother

The subject of a strong religious call?

by William Ernest Henley

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.

by William Ernest Henley

London Types: 'Liza

'Liza's old man's perhaps a little shady,

'Liza's old woman's prone to booze and cring;

But 'Liza deems herself a perfect lady,

And proves it in her feathers and her fringe.

For 'Liza has a bloke her heart to cheer,

With pearlies and a barrer and a jack,

So all the vegetables of the year

Are duly represented on her back.

by William Ernest Henley

Discharged

Carry me out

Into the wind and the sunshine,

Into the beautiful world.

O, the wonder, the spell of the streets!

The stature and strength of the horses,

The rustle and echo of footfalls,

The flat roar and rattle of wheels!

A swift tram floats huge on us . . .

by William Ernest Henley

Staff Nurse: New Style

Blue-eyed and bright of face but waning fast

Into the sere of virginal decay,

I view her as she enters, day by day,

As a sweet sunset almost overpast.

Kindly and calm, patrician to the last,

Superbly falls her gown of sober gray,

And on her chignon's elegant array

The plainest cap is somehow touched with caste.

by William Ernest Henley

Apparition

Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably,

Neat-footed and weak-fingered: in his face -

Lean, large-boned, curved of beak, and touched with race,

Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea,

The brown eyes radiant with vivacity -

There shines a brilliant and romantic grace,

A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace

Of passion and impudence and energy.

by William Ernest Henley

Romance

'Talk of pluck!' pursued the Sailor,

Set at euchre on his elbow,

'I was on the wharf at Charleston,

Just ashore from off the runner.

'It was grey and dirty weather,

And I heard a drum go rolling,

Rub-a-dubbing in the distance,

Awful dour-like and defiant.

by William Ernest Henley

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.

by William Ernest Henley

London Types: Flower-Girl

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-lily, close-carnation,

Red rose and white rose, wall-flower, mignonette,

The daisies all—these be her recreation,

by William Ernest Henley

Anterotics

Laughs the happy April morn

Thro' my grimy, little window,

And a shaft of sunshine pushes

Thro' the shadows in the square.

Dogs are tracing thro' the grass,

Crows are cawing round the chimneys,

In and out among the washing

Goes the West at hide-and-seek.

by William Ernest Henley