Poeticous Logo
en
English Español Français Italiano
William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

I Am the Reaper

I am the Reaper.
All things with heedful hook
Silent I gather.
Pale roses touched with the spring,
Tall corn in summer,
Fruits rich with autumn, and frail winter blossoms—
Reaping, still reaping—
All things with heedful hook
Timely I gather.
 
I am the Sower.
All the unbodied life
Runs through my seed-sheet.
Atom with atom wed,
Each quickening the other,
Fall through my hands, ever changing, still changeless.
Ceaselessly sowing,
Life, incorruptible life,
Flows from my seed-sheet.
 
Maker and breaker,
I am the ebb and the flood,
Here and Hereafter,
Sped through the tangle and coil
Of infinite nature,
Viewless and soundless I fashion all being.
Taker and giver,
I am the womb and the grave,
The Now and the Ever

#EnglishWriters

Other works by William Ernest Henley...
O, Gather Me the Rose

O, gather me the rose, the rose, While yet in flower we find it, For summer smiles, but summer goes… And winter waits behind it! For with the dream foregone, foreg…
She Saunters by the Swinging Seas

She sauntered by the swinging seas… A jewel glittered at her ear, And, teasing her along, the breeze Brought many a rounded grace more… So passing, one with wave and beam…
Double Ballade on the Nothingness of Things

The big teetotum twirls, And epochs wax and wane As chance subsides or swirls; But of the loss and gain The sum is always plain.
Arabian Night’s Entertainments

Once on a time There was a little boy: a master-m… By virtue of a Book Of magic—O, so magical it filled His life with visionary pomps
House-Surgeon

Exceeding tall, but built so well… Half-disappears in flow of chest a… Moustache and whisker trooper-like… Frank-faced, frank-eyed, frank-hea… And always punctual-morning, noon,…
Discharged

Carry me out Into the wind and the sunshine, Into the beautiful world. O, the wonder, the spell of the st… The stature and strength of the ho…
Easy Is the Triolet

Easy is the Triolet, If you really learn to make it! Once a neat refrain you get, Easy is the Triolet. As you see! I pay my debt
London Types: Flower-Girl

There’s never a delicate nurseling… But our huge London hails it, and… To wear it on her breast or at her… Her days to colour and make sweet… Crocus and daffodil and violet,
A Desolate Shore

A desolate shore, The sinister seduction of the Moo… The menace of the irreclaimable S… Flaunting, tawdry and grim, From cloud to cloud along her beat…
Interior

The gaunt brown walls Look infinite in their decent mean… There is nothing of home in the no… The fulsome fire. The atmosphere
Dedication—To my Wife

Take, dear, my little sheaf of son… For, old or new, All that is good in them belongs Only to you; And, singing as when all was young…
In the Dials

To GARRYOWEN upon an organ gr… Two girls are jigging. Riotously… With eyes aflame, quick bosoms, ha… As in the tumult of a witches’ rou… Youngsters and youngsters round th…
We'll Go No More a-Roving

We’ll go no more a-roving by the l… November glooms are barren beside… The summer flowers are faded, the… We’ll go no more a-roving, lest wo… We’ll go no more a-roving by the l…
To my Mother

Chiming a dream by the way With ocean’s rapture and roar, I met a maiden to-day Walking alone on the shore: Walking in maiden wise,
 1
London Types: Bluecoat Boy

So went our boys when Edward Sixt… Chartered Christ’s Hospital, and… Full fifteen generations in a stri… Of heirs to his bequest have had t… Thus Camden showed, and Barnes, a…



Top