HAWTHORN AND LAVENDER WITH OTHER VERSES ISAAC FOOfl LIBRARY I By the same Author A BOOK OF VERSES LONDON VOLUNTARIES FOR ENGLAND'S SAKE VIEWS AND REVIEWS Literature VIEWS AND REVIEWS Art All Published by D. NuTT LONDON TYPES QUATORZAINS Published by W. Heinemann, London With Illustrations by W. Nicholson ^to. 1898. 51. HAWTHORN AND LAVENDER With Other Verses, by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY 0, hoiv shall summer's honey breath hold out Against the ivrackful siege of battering days ? SHAKESPEARE LONDON Published by D^VID NUTT at the Sign of the Phoenix IN Long Acre 1901 Edinburgh : T. and A. Constaule, (late) Printers to Her Majesty 17 / ' i u w' //J LIBRARY UNlVEKSrr\ v/:'- .■ ^^r/zVj and a barrer and 2.jack^ So all the vegetables of the year Are duly represented on her back. Her boots are sacrifices to her hats, Which knock you speechless — like a load of bricks ! Her summer velvets dazzle Wanstead Flats^ And cost, at times, a good eighteen-and-six. Withal, outside the gay and giddy whirl, 'Liza's a stupid, straight, hard-working girl. LONDON TYPES 79 VII 'LADY' Time, the old humourist, has a trick to-day Of moving landmarks and of levelling down, Till into Town the Suburbs edge their way. And in the Suburbs you may scent the Town. With Mount St. thus approaching Muswell Hill, And Clapham Common marching with the Mile, You get a Hammersmith that fills the bill., A Hampstead with a serious sense of style. So this fair creature, pictured in "The Rojv, As one of that 'gay adulterous world,' ^ whose round Is by the Serpentine, as well would show, And might, I deem, as readily be found On Streatham's Hill, or IVimbledon's, or where Brixtonian kitchens lard the late-dining air. 1 Wilfrid Blunt. 8o LONDON TYPES VIII BLUECOAT BOY So went our boys when Edward Sixth^ the King, Chartered Christ's Hospital^ and died. And so Full fifteen generations in a string Of heirs to his bequest have had to go. Thus Camden showed, and Barnes, and Stilling- FLEET, And Richardson, that bade our Lovelace be ; The little Elia thus in Newgate Street ; Thus to his Genevieve young S. T. C. With thousands else that, wandering up and down, Quaint, privileged, liked and reputed well. Made the great School a part of London 'Town Patent as Paul's and vital as Bow Bell : The old School nearing exile, day by day, To certain clay -lands somewhere Horsham way. LONDON TYPES IX MOUNTED POLICE Army Reserve ; a worshipper of Bobs, With whom he stripped the smock from Canda- HAR; Neat as his mount, that neatest among cobs ; Whenever pageants pass, or meetings are, He moves conspicuous, vigilant, severe. With his Light Cavalry hand and seat and look, A living type of Order, in whose sphere Is room for neither Hooligan nor Hook. For in his shadow, wheresoe'er he ride, Paces, all eye and hardihood and grip, The dreaded Crusher, might in his every stride And right materialized girt at his hip ; And they, that shake to see these twain go by. Feel that the Tec, that plain-clothes Terror, is nigh. 82 LONDON TYPES NEWS-BOY Take any station, pavement, circus, corner, Where men their styles of print may call or choose, And there — ten times more on it than "Jack Horner — There shall you find him swathed in sheets of news. Nothing can stay the placing of his wares — Not bus, nor cab, nor dray ! The very Slop, That imp of power, is powerless ! Ever he dares, And, daring, lands his public neck and crop. Even the many-tortured London ear. The much-enduring, loathes his Speeshul yell. His shriek of Winnur ! But his dart and leer And poise are irresistible. Pall Mall Joys in him, and Mile End ; for his vocation Is to purvey the stuff of conversation. LONDON TYPES 83 XI DRUM-MAJOR Who says Drum-Major says a man of mould, Shaking the meek earth with tremendous tread, And pacing still, a triumph to behold. Of his own spine at least two yards ahead ! Attorney, grocer, surgeon, broker, duke — His calling may be anything, who comes Into a room, his presence a rebuke To the dejected, as the pipes and drums Inspired his port ! — who mounts his office stairs As though he led great armies to the fight ! His bulk itself 's pure genius, and he wears His avoirdupois with so much fire and spright That, though the creature stands but five feet five, You take him for the tallest He alive. 84 LONDON TYPES XII 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, clove-carnation. Red rose and white rose, wall-flower, mignonette. The daisies all — these be her recreation, Her gaudies these ! And forth from DnuRr Lane^ Trapesing in any of her whirl of weathers, Her flower-girls foot it, honest and hoarse and vain. All boot and little shawl and wilted feathers : Of populous corners right advantage taking. And, where they squat, endlessly posy-making. LONDON TYPES 85 XIII BARMAID Though, if you ask her name, she says Elise^ Being plain Elizabeth^ e'en let it pass. And own that, if her aspirates take their ease, She ever makes a point, in washing glass. Handling the engine, turning taps for tots, And countering change, and scorning what men say, Of posing as a dove among the pots, Nor often gives her dignity away. Her head 's a work of art, and, if her eyes Be tired and ignorant, she has a waist ; Cheaply the Mode she shadows ; and she tries From penny novels to amend her taste ; And, having mopped the zinc for certain years. And faced the gas, she fades and disappears. 'The Artist muses at his ease. Contented that his work is done, And smiling — smiling ! — as he sees His crowd collecting, one by one. Alas ! his trUvail 'j but begun ! None, none can keep the years in line. And what to Ninety -Eight is fun May raise the gorge of Ninety-Nine I MuswELL Hill, i! Ill THREE PROLOGUES M BEAU AUSTIN 89 / BEAU JUSTIN By IV. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson^ Haymarket Theatre^ November 3, 1 890. Spoken by Mr. Tree in the character of Beau Austin. ' To all and singular,' as Drtden says, We bring a fancy of those Georgian days, Whose style still breathed a faint and fine perfume Of old-world courtliness and old-world bloom : When speech was elegant and talk was fit, For slang had not been canonised as wit ; When manners reigned, when breeding had the wall. And Women — yes ! — were ladies first of all ; When Grace was conscious of its gracefulness. And man — though Man ! — was not ashamed to dress. A brave formality, a measured ease Were his — and hers — whose effort was to please. And to excel in pleasing was to reign, And, if you sighed, never to sigh in vain. 90 THREE PROLOGUES But then, as now — it may be, something more — Woman and man were human to the core. The hearts that throbbed behind that brave attire Burned with a plenitude of essential fire. They too could risk, they also could rebel : They could love wisely — they could love too well. In that great duel of Sex, that ancient strife Which is the very central fact of life. They could — and did — engage it breath for breath. They could — and did — get wounded unto death. As at all times since time for us began Woman was truly woman, man was man, And joy and sorrow were as much at home In trifling Tunbridge as in mighty Rome. Dead — dead and done with 1 Swift from shine to shade The roaring generations flit and fade. To this one, fading, flitting, like the rest. We come to proffer — be it worst or best — A sketch, a shadow, of one brave old time ; A hint of what it might have held sublime ; A dream, an idyll, call it what you will. Of man still Man, and woman — Woman still ! RICHARD SAVAGE 91 // RICHARD SAVAGE By J. M. Barrie and H. B. Marriott Wation^ Criterion Theatre^ April 16, 1 89 1. To other boards for pun and song and dance ! Our purpose is an essay in romance : An old-world story where such old-world facts As hate and love and death, through four swift acts — Not without gleams and glances, hints and cues. From the dear bright eyes of the Comic Muse ! — So shine and sound that, as we fondly deem, They may persuade you to accept our dream : Our own invention, mainly — though we take. Somewhat for art but most for interest's sake One for our hero who goes wandering still In the long shadow of Parnassus Hill ; Scarce within eyeshot ; but his tragic shade Compels that recognition due be made, When he comes knocking at the student's door, Something as poet, if as blackguard more. 92 THREE PROLOGUES Poet and blackguard. Of the first — how much? As to the second, in quite perfect touch With folly and sorrow, even shame and crime. He lived the grief and wonder of his time ! Marked for reproaches from his life's beginning ; Extremely sinned against as well as sinning ; Hack, spendthrift, starveling, duellist in turn ; Too cross to cherish yet too fierce to spurn ; Begrimed with ink or brave with wine and blood ; Spirit of fire and manikin of mud ; Now shining clear, now fain to starve and skulk ; Star of the cellar, pensioner of the bulk ; At once the child of passion and the slave ; Brawling his way to an unhonoured grave — That was Dick Savage I Yet, ere his ghost we raise For these more decent and less desperate days, It may be well and seemly to reflect That, howbeit of so prodigal a sect. Since it was his to call until the end Our greatest, wisest Englishman his friend, 'Twere ail-too fatuous if we cursed and scorned The strange, wild creature Johnson loved and mourned. RICHARD SAVAGE 93 Nature is but the oyster — Art 's the pearl : Our Dick is neither sycophant nor churl. Not as he was but as he might have been Had the Unkind Gods been poets of the scene, Fired with our fancy, shaped and tricked anew To touch your hearts with love, your eyes with rue, He stands or falls, ere he these boards depart, Not as dead Nature but as living Art. 94 THREE PROLOGUES /// ADMIRAL GUINEA By W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson^ Avenue Theatre, Monday^ November 29, 1B97. Spoken by Miss Elizabeth Robins. Once was an Age, an Age of blood and gold, An Age of shipmen scoundrelly and bold — Blackbeard and Avort, Singleton, Roberts, Kidd : An Age which seemed, the while it rolled its quid, Brave with adventure and doubloons and crime. Rum and the Ebony Trade : when, time on time, Real Pirates, right Sea-Highwaymen, could mock The carrion strung at Execution Dock ; And the trim Slaver, with her raking rig. Her cloud of sails, her spars superb and trig, Held, in a villainous ecstasy of gain. Her musky course from Benin to the Main, And back again for niggers : When, in fine, Some thought that Eden bloomed across the Line, And some, like CorvPER's Newton, lived to tell That through those parallels ran the road to Hell. ADMIRAL GUINEA 95 Once was a pair of Friends, who loved to chance Their feet in any by-way of Romance : They, like two vagabond schoolboys, unafraid Of stark impossibilities, essayed To make these Penitent and Impenitent Thieves, These Petvs and Grunts, each man of them with his sheaves Of humour, passion, cruelty, tyranny, life. Fit shadows for the boards ; till in the strife Of dream with dream, their Slaver-Saint came true. And their Blind Pirate, their resurgent Psfv (A figure of deadly farce in his new birth). Tap-tapped his way from Orcus back to earth ; And so, their Lover and his Lass made one. In their best prose this Admiral here was done. One of this Pair sleeps till the crack of doom Where the great ocean-rollers plunge and boom : The other waits and wonders what his Friend, Dead now, and deaf, and silent, were the end Revealed to his rare spirit, would find to say If you, his lovers, loved him for this Play. N IV EPICEDIA EPICEDIA 99 TWO DAYS {February 15 — September z%, 1894) To V. G. That day we brought our Beautiful One to lie In the green peace within your gates, he came To give us greeting, boyish and kind and shy, And, stricken as we were, we blessed his name : Yet, like the Creature of Light that had been ours, Soon of the sweet Earth disinherited, He too must join, even with the Year's old flowers, The unanswering generations of the Dead. So stand we friends for you, who stood our friend Through him that day ; for now through him you know That, though where love was love is till the end. Love, turned of death to longing, like a foe, Strikes : when the ruined heart goes forth to crave Mercy of the high, austere, unpitying Grave. 100 EPICEDIA IN MEMORIAM THOMAS EDWARD BROWN {Ob. October 30, icSp;) He looked half-parson and half-skipper : a quaint, Beautiful blend, with blue eyes good to see. And old-world whiskers. You found him cynic, saint, Salt, humourist. Christian, poet ; with a free, Far-glancing, luminous utterance ; and a heart Large as St. Francis's : withal a brain Stored with experience, letters, fancy, art. And scored with runes of human joy and pain. Till six-and-sixty years he used his gift, His gift unparalleled, of laughter and tears. And left the world a high-piled, golden drift Of verse : to grow more golden with the years, Till the Great Silence fallen upon his ways Break into song, and he that had Love have Praise. EPICEDIA loi IN MEMORIAM GEORGE WARRINGTON STEEVENS London, December lo, 1869. Lady smith, January 15, 1900, We cheered you forth — brilhant and kind and brave. Under your country's triumphing flag you fell. It floats, true heart, over no dearer grave- Brave and brilliant and kind, hail and farewell ! 102 EPICEDIA LAST POST The day's high work is over and done, And these no more will need the sun : Blow, you bugles of England, blow ! These are gone whither all must go, Mightily gone from the field they won. So in the workaday wear of battle. Touched to glory with God's own red. Bear we our chosen to their bed. Settle them lovingly where they fell, In that good lap they loved so well ; And, their deliveries to the dear Lord said. And the last desperate volleys ranged and sped. Blow, you bugles of England, blow Over the camps of her beaten foe — Blow glory and pity to the victor Mother, Sad, O, sad in her sacrificial dead ! Labour, and love, and strife, and mirth. They gave their part in this goodly Earth — EPICEDIA 103 Blow, you bugles of England, blow ! — That her Name as a sun among stars might glow, Till the dusk of Time, with honour and worth : That, stung by the lust and the pain of battle. The One Race ever might starkly spread, And the One Flag eagle it overhead ! In a rapture of wrath and faith and pride. Thus they felt it, and thus they died ; So to the Maker of homes, to the Giver of bread. For whose dear sake their triumphing souls they shed. Blow, you bugles of England, blow. Though you break the heart of her beaten foe. Glory and praise to the everlasting Mother, Glory and peace to her lovely and faithful dead ! 104 EPICEDIA IN MEMORIAM REGINAE DILECTISSIMAE VICTORIAE {May 24, 1 8 19 — January 22, 1901) Sceptre and orb and crown^ High ensigns of a sovranty containing 'The beauty and strength and state of half a worlds Pass from her^ and she fades Into the oldy inviolable peace. She had been ours so long She seemed a piece of England : spirit and blood And message England's self, Home-coloured, England in look and deed and dream ; Like the rich meadows and woods, the serene rivers, And sea-charmed cliffs and beaches, that still bring EPICEDIA 105 A rush of tender pride to the heart That beats in England's airs to England's ends : August, familiar, irremovable. Like the good stars that shine In the good skies that only England knows : So that we held it sure GoD'S aim, God's will, God'S way, When Empire from her footstool, realm on realm, Spread, even as from her notable womb Sprang line on line of Kings ; For she was England — England and our Queen. II O, she was ours ! And she had aimed And known and done the best And highest in time : greatly rejoiced. Ruled greatly, greatly endured. Love had been hers, And widowhood, glory and grief, increase In wisdom and power and pride. Dominion, honour, children, reverence : So that, in peace and war io6 EPICEDIA Innumerably victorious, she lay down To die in a world renewed, Cleared, in her luminous umbrage beautified For Man, and changing fast Into so gracious an inheritance As Man had never dared Imagine. Think, when she passed, Think what a pageant of immortal acts, Done in the unapproachable face Of Time by the high, transcending human mind, Shone and acclaimed And triumphed in her advent ! Think of the ghosts. Think of the mighty ghosts : soldiers and priests. Artists and captains of discovery, GoD'S chosen. His adventurers up the heights Of thought and deed — how many of them that led The forlorn hopes of the World ! — Her peers and servants, made the air Of her death-chamber glorious ! Think how they thronged About her bed, and with what pride They took this sister-ghost Tenderly into the night ! O, think — EPICEDIA 107 And, thinking, bow the head In sorrow, but in the reverence that makes The strong man stronger — this true maid, True wife, true mother, tried and found An hundred times true steel. This unforgettable woman was your Queen ! Ill Tears for her — tears ! Tears and the mighty rites Of an everlasting and immense farewell, England^ green heart of the world, and you, Dear dQ.m\-ENGLANDS^ far-away isles of home. Where the old speech is native, and the old flag Floats, and the old irresistible call, The watch-word of so many ages of years, Makes men in love With toil for the race, and pain, and peril, and death ! Tears, and the dread, tremendous dirge Of her brooding battleships, and hosts Processional, with trailing arms ; the plaint — Measured, enormous, terrible — of her guns ; The slow, heart-breaking throb io8 EPICEDIA Of bells ; the trouble of drums ; the blare Of mourning trumpets ; the discomforting pomp Of silent crowds, black streets, and banners-royal Obsequious ! Then, these high things done, Rise, heartened of your passion ! Rise to the height Of her so lofty life ! Kneel, if you must ; But, kneeling, win to those great altitudes On which she sought and did Her clear, supernal errand unperturbed ! Let the new memory Be as the old, long love ! So, when the hour Strikes, as it must, for valour of heart, Virtue, and patience, and unblenching hope, And the inflexible resolve That, come the World in arms. This breeder of nations, England^ keeping the seas Hers as from God, shall in the sight of God Stand justified of herself Wherever her unretreating bugles blow ! Remember that she lived That this magnificent Power might still perdure — Your friend, your passionate servant, counsellor. Queen. EPICEDIA 109 IV Be that your chief of mourning — that ! — England, O Mother, and you, The daughter Kingdoms born and reared Of England's travail and sweet blood ; And never will you lands, The live earth over and round, Wherethrough for sixty royal and radiant years Her drum-tap made the dawns English — Never will you So fittingly and well have paid your debt Of grief and gratitude to the souls That sink in England's harness into the dream : ' I die for England's sake, and it is well ' : As now to this valiant, wonderful piece of earth, To which the assembling nations bare the head, And bend the knee, In absolute veneration — once your Queen. Sceptre and orb and crown, High ensigns of a sovranty empaling The glory and love and praise of a whole half-world. Fall from her, and, preceding, she departs Into the old, indissoluble Peace. no EPILOGUE EPILOGUE Into a land Storm-wrought, a place of quakes, all thunder- scarred, Helpless, degraded, desolate. Peace, the White Angel, comes. Her eyes are as a mother's. Her good hands Are comforting, and helping ; and her voice Falls on the heart, as, after winter, spring Falls on the world, and there is no more pain. And, in her influence, hope returns, and life, And the passion of endeavour : so that, soon. The idle ports are insolent with keels ; The stithies roar, and the mills thrum With energy and achievement ; weald and wold Exult ; the cottage-garden teems With innocent hues and odours ; boy and girl Mate prosp'rously ; there are sweet women to kiss ; There are good women to breed. In a golden fog. EPILOGUE III A large, full-stomached faith in kindliness All over the world, the nation, in a dream Of money and love and sport, hangs at the paps Of well-being, and so Goes fattening, mellowing, dozing, rotting down Into a rich deliquium of decay. Then, if the Gods be good. Then, if the Gods be other than mischievous, Down from their footstools, down With a million-throated shouting, swoops and storms War, the Red Angel, the Awakener, The Shaker of Souls and Thrones ; and at her heel Trail grief, and ruin, and shame ! The woman weeps her man, the mother her son. The tenderling its father. In wild hours, A people, haggard with defeat, Asks if there be a God ; yet sets its teeth. Faces calamity, and goes into the fire Another than it was. And in wild hours A people, roaring ripe With victory, rises, menaces, stands renewed. Sheds its old peddling aims, p 112 EPILOGUE Approves its virtue, puts behind itself The comfortable dream, and goes, Armoured and militant, New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps To those great altitudes, whereat the weak Live not. But only the strong Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve. Worthing, 1901. Printed by T. and A. Constable, (late) Printers to Her Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press MR. HENLEY'S WORKS WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR A BOOK OF VERSES IN HOSPITAL: RHYMES AND RHYTHMS. LIFE AND DEATH (ECHOES). BRIC-A-BRAC : BALLADS, RONDELS, SONNETS, QUATORZAINS, AND RONDEAUS. Fifth Edition. i6mo. Cloth. With Etched Title-page Vignette of the Old Infirmary, Edinburgh, by W. Hole, A.R.S.A. Price 25. 6d. net. The Spectator says ' the author is a genuine poet . . . there is freshness in all he writes, and music in much of it, and, what is perhaps rarer, a clear eye for outline and colour, and character in a good deal of it. . . • Mr. Henley's keenness of vision, freshness of feeling, and capacity for song are unmistakable. ' For The Saturday Review 'the ring of genuine and virile humanity is more singular in this volume than its clever workmanship.' It further com- mends ' his lusty vigour, his spirited ring, his touch of wholesome plainness and freshness.' Q MR. HENLEY'S WORKS The Athen^um discusses at length his ' realism, that is something more than pre-Raphaelite,' and notes his 'fine and winning kind of Rabelaisian heartiness,' and his 'manly and heroic expression of the temper of the sufiferer. ' The Universal Review. — ' It is poetry, not merely measured prose or successfully jangled verse. . . . Neither the fancy nor the melody of the verse forms the charm of the book, though there is enough of both to make the fortune of many a minor poet. The real excellence rather consists in the kindly philosophy, strong, yet tender withal, which breathes from these pages — the words of a man who has seen both the gaiety and the suffering of life, who has had his share in each, and who now looks tolerantly or bravely at "happiness or pain.' The Academy. — 'Mr. Henley's treatment of the Hospital theme ... is powerful, genuine, and manly throughout. . . . Through the Dantesque world of his infirmary the joy of a strong life runs ever like a stream. . . . Most of the poems in the Life and Death section are love-songs, warm and throbbing from the heart.' The St. James's Gazette describes the volume as ' wholesome phantasy, wholesome feeling, wholesome human affection, expressed in adequate form. . . . The Hospital section is the literary picture of a section of human suffering which has not before found its artist. There is here the result of a direct experience by one who knows what to say, what to indicate, what to leave unsaid.' The Critic (New York) thinks ' Mr. Henley the easy achiever of all he essays to do,' and signals out especially the 'jocosery, the grotesquery, and daintiness of form ' of the Bric-A-brac section. The Scotsman says ' the collection is one over which the lover of poetry will linger ... for its natural simplicity and directness of feeling, its careful, choice, and harmonious handling of language.' The Weekly Register says of the Hospital poems, ' They may be painful sometimes, but there is a tenderness in them which is educative to the most fastidious. ' A BOOK OF VERSES The Scottish Leader holds the book ' to combine that realism of actual and detailed description with that obscure essence of feeling, held captive by the right words, which is the eternal distinction between prose and poetry. . . . Curiously and memorably vivid, full of deft phrasing, and perfectly free from prosaism,' The Glasgow Herald notes the ' terse and vivid suggestion of landscape and natural features . . . the dignity and beauty of the Rondeaus,' The Scots Magazine commends the ' felicitous union of vigorous thinking with artistic deftness . . . the robust and spirited tone, the purity and grace of diction,' Merry England remarks that • Mr. Henley, before writing his verses, has made a great sweeping movement, which has cleared out of his way all the methods and manners surrounding the practice of poetry — not merely the weak and large old traditions ostentatiously set aside by Wordsworth, but all the smaller conventionalities that are so constantly and imperceptibly accumulating. ... A poem which, as usual with Mr. Henley, tells the truth, and tells it with vital sincerity.' The Manchester Guardian observes : ' In a not inconsiderable reading of contemporary verse the two difficulties which we have observed as chiefly besetting the poet are — first, the difficulty of being forcible without being extravagant or grotesque, original without being far-fetched ; and, secondly, the difficulty of feeling and showing the restraint and discipline of literary sense and form without being mannered, bloodless, and unreal. Mr. Henley appears to us to have mastered both these in a very uncommon degree.' Finally, The Pall Mall Gazette is of opinion that this 'is a horrible, fascinating, and wrong, yet rightly done, little book — a book which no one should be advised to read, and which no one would be content to have missed.' MR. HENLEY'S WORKS LONDON VOLUNTARIES AND OTHER VERSES Being a Second Edition, with additions of the volume entitled ' The Song of the Sword.' i6mo. Cloth, 2S. 6d. net. The Daily Chronicle. — ' If ever a great strong nature revealed itself at a white heat it does in this volume.' The Scotsman. — ' Uniformly admirable.' The St. James's Gazette. — 'The work of a genuine poet ; you read the book in a glow, you close it with a sigh of content. ' The Star. — ' Extremely fine poetry. . . . Powerful to an almost uncomfort- able degree. ' The Times. — ' Of exceptional interest and importance.' The Saturday Review. — 'These vivid and modern pieces of emotional description.' The Sunday Sun. — ' Passages instinct with beauty and sounding a deep poetic note. . . . More than one lyric in whose note there is the true inevitableness.' The Spectator. — ' Militant and uncompromising modernity.' The Echo. — ' A poet of the new era, the era in which the scientific concep- tions popularly classed as Darwinian are so profoundly modifying men's ideas, not merely on religion, but on morals and society as well. His "Song of the Sword" could not have been written in any age except the age which has produced Darwin, and Wallace, and Spencer.' The Scottish Leader. — 'A wonderful variety of verse-effect, and an astonishing wealth of unexpected and startling phrasing.' 4 MR. HENLEY'S WORKS The above-named Collections {A Book of Verses and London Voluntaries) are reprinted, with Omissions, Additions, and Changes of Text, in POEMS COLLECTED EDITION Comprising the Matter of his Previous Volumes, A Book of Verses and London Volwitaries, with Omissions, Additions, and Changes. Small demy 8vo. Printed at the Constable Press on Special Paper. With Photogravure of the Author's Bust by Rodin. Third Issue. Cloth, top gilt, (>s. PRESS NOTICES The Morning Post.— 'The brilliancy of Mr. Henley's versatile work in prose, not only as a journalist, but as thf chronicler of Byron and the candid critic of Burns, has perhaps made us a little forgetful of the great excellence of his poetry. . . . His note, too, is the poignant note of actual experience ; it con- vinces us, as we fail to be convinced by " the happy, prompt, instinctive way of youth" that satisfies those younger schools that have yet to learn the wisdom of the warning : — " By thine own tears thy song must tears beget, O Singer ! Magic mirror thou hast none Except thy manifest heart." And this experience that has learned in suffering what it here teaches in song Is not revealed only in those astonishingly vivid records, In Hospital; nor in the lighter personal lyrics of Echoes ; but also in the poet's wide and catholic vision of the elemental things of Life and Death.' The Echo. — ' Years of dogged and unfaltering struggle — 'mid illness, neglect, and bereavement — have brought William Ernest Henley late in life his meed of 5 MR. HENLEY'S WORKS fame and distinction. This most luminous and incisive of contemporary critics, this most plangent and representative of modern poets, is scarcely less a living classic than Algernon Swinburne or George Meredith. And yet how compara- tively small, though exquisite, is his literary output. . . . This definitive edition . , . only proves afresh its author's marvellous restraint while emphasising once more the vivid originality of a strong and compelling personality.' The Daily Telegraph. — 'The book, small as it is, is large enough to give its author a high place among the poets of the world ; and no one can read it without recognising that its size was determined, not by any lack ot inspiration, but by a resolute horror of superfluous oi ill-considered verses. From beginning to end there is no line too much ; one only regrets the sentence of exile passed upon some old, familiar numbers.' The Sun. — 'It is somewhat difficult to understand why Mr. Henley's ex- tremely strong and natural poetical qualities should have remained so long the admiration of a comparatively small band of admirers in a period when poetical fame seems won with little waiting. A great deal of Mr. Henley's late work is of the best which the time has given us. It is the voice of a great primitive personality. It seems sometimes the voice of a great savage ; but the savage of Mr. Henley's song is a strenuous, natural man, vehement in his fervour, fearlessly matched against Nature, but catching many wizard emotions and fancies from his contact with her winds and tides.' The Saturday Review. — 'He has the present satisfaction of knowing that all whose opinion is of any moment have come to recognise the value of the gems he has cast into the treasure-house of English poetry. . . . No man of our time has addressed himself with more fastidious exclusiveness lo the aristocratic judgment.' The Spectator. — 'No poet has ever so magnificently and so truthfully transferred to his pages the strength and the sombre splendour of London and all the glories of her river. . . . Verse which is scholarly in the best sense, which is eloquent, which is full of passion and inspiration.' The Bookman. — 'It is timely to consider what his verse is worth to us. Time will rank it in the great lists, or blot it. Time cannot rank it for us ; our gratitude is overdue for the kindling of his robust, romantic, most friendly muse. ' The Critic. — ' One finds, on looking through the various sections of this book, not merely fine artistry, but a living character — a strong nature at harmony with itself. The outlook of his spirit remains ever fearless, ever heroic' MR. HENLEY'S WORKS VIEWS AND REVIEWS ESSAYS IN APPRECIATION Second Edition. LITERATURE i6mo. XII + 235 pages. Printed by Constable Cloth, top gilt Price ^s. net. The Spectator. — 'This is one of the most remarkable volumes of literary criticism— in more senses than one it is the most striking — that have appeared for a number of years. Mr. Henley has been known for a considerable time as one of the most fearless, if not also as one of the most uncompromising, of art critics, the sworn foe of conventionality in " paint " and of flabby timidity in writing the truth about it. More recently he published a volume of poems, full of character, and in which "our lady of pain" figured as a reality of the writer's experience, not as a mere Swinburnian phantom. And now in this volume of Viewi and Reviews he figures as a prose critic in literature. . . . His book is not so much one of literary criticism, in the ordinary and proper sense of the word, as of brilliant table-talk. . . . Taken altogether. Views and Reviews will provoke as much censure as commendation ; for whatever may be Mr. Henley's faults, a commonplace habit ot looking at men and things is not one of them. He is a master of a most remarkable and attractive style, — sometimes, indeed, he seems to be the servant of it. His book, therefoie, deserves to be read, and will be read. And yet, unless we are much mistaken, it is but its author's preliminary canter in the field of criticism.* The National Observer. — 'This book, in many respects brilliant, unsatis- factory in not a few, is remarkable in all. ... It is but rarely that you fall in with so choice and desiraljle an example of the printer's craft. . . . The MR. HENLEY'S WORKS author's style, the author's point of view, above all the author's ever present personality, bind these fragments into a sufficiently perceptible and intelligible whole. . . . Mr. Henley's style is not equable nor serene, nor classic. Rather is it full of surprises, restless and capricious, with moments of immense power and dazzling brilliance.' The Speaker. — 'A good book of criticism. . . . Mr. Henley has much in common with modern French criticism. There is something of the same robust- ness of tone, magisterial finality of deliverance, uncompromising utterance of personal conviction, something also of the same strong and close grip of his subject. . . . He claims for himself "an honest regard for letters"; we may concede to him also other good qualities — sincerity, knowledge, and strength. His judgments are in the main clear-sighted, sane, humane, and generous.' The ATHENii:uM. — 'The exceeding liveliness of his style, his fondness for epigram and antithesis, his love of paradox and generalisation, his faculty of adapting old phrases to new uses, and other characteristics of his, attract and delight the reader. . . . He possesses a wide range of reading, real insight, a hearty appreciation of good literature, and a genuine faculty nf making just comparisons. A collection of brilliant yet thoughtful observations on authors and books in which there is not a dull line, and which contains much that is at once original and true.' The Academy (signed Oliver Elton). — 'A rare and tine critical perception. ... It is crammed with good things, and the good things are those of a man who can be both a wit and a poet.' The Book Gazette. — ' Mr. Henley is one of the most facile and charming writers of prose and verse in some of their guises that we possess. . . . The subjects he has preferred from all others in this volume are in themselves gems, and Mr. Henley has mounted them in a setting of his own design. This design is chaste and elegant, though, indeed, simple and free from ostentation.' Livre Moderne. — ' Un petit livre qui interessera beaucoup tous les Fran9ais qui sont familiers avec la langue anglaise.' The Graphic. — 'A series of bright, witty, rapid characterisations of literary men, of the present and of the past of our own and other countries.' The British Weekly (signed J. M. Barrie). — ' Much wit, and here and there aphorisms that one may remember to be met before in newspapers, and wondered who made them. . . . Written in poet's English. . . . The printing (by the Constables) is a joy to the eye.' The Guardian. — 'Good criticism, that keenest spur to the enjoyment of good literature, is none so common in this country that we can afford to pass 8 VIEWS AND REVIEWS over an addition to it in silence. . . . We cannot but acknowledge that he has put forth a real scheme, that he has tested the writers who have passed before him by real tests, that he has put results of candour and of true, though perhaps not very broad toleration, down in language which is for the most part at once dexterous and definite, at once critical and picturesque, at once sober and yet full of colour. ' The Church Reformer. — 'A more valuable contribution to Hterary criticism has not been given to the public for many years. . . . The strength, boldness, and honesty of his judgments are beyond all praise.' The Tablet. — 'The book has something of the inimitable. There is force, there is selection, there is simplicity without blankness and elaboration without cramp. There is felicity everywhere, and a cleverness which is welcomed the more keenly for its rare companion, an abiding respect for the language in which it barters. . . . Throughout, moreover, there is the distinction which Mr. Coventry Patmore has denied as the attribute of any writer new in the last twenty years; that distinction which, being of the aristocracy of letters, is indescribable (even by epigram), and is yet very secure.' The St. James's Gazette. — ' Doubly welcome. It is good in itself, and seems even better than it is by comparison with so much that is either positively or negatively bad. He has something to say about forty authors, from Theocritus to Mr. Austin Dobson, and from Shakespeare to Dickens and Thackeray. He has read widely and well, he has thought for himself, he has the courage of his opinions, and he has a genuine love for all that is best and worthiest in literature. . . . Viervs and Reviews is a book to be viewed and reviewed by the real lover of literature, not once only, but again and again ' The Scotsman. — 'The pieces are homogeneous with one another, mainly because of the sincerity of Mr. Henley's judgments on literature. . . . They are always earnest and honest, which is as much as to say that thty are always interesting. . . . Not only readable from beginning to end (as is rare in a book of collected criticisms), but stimulating and suggestive in no common degree.' The Glasgow Herald. — *If Mr. Henley can be said to belong to any school in literature, it is to the school of reaction in favour of virility and action against namby-pambyism, sentimentality and introspection. ... Of this school Mr. Henley is out of sight the best all-round stylist.' The North British Daily Mail. — 'Mr. Henley has constructed a work well qualified by its intrinsic merits to take a high place in the world of pure literature. The essays are a delight to read, and they furnish a curriculum through which all students of letters, old and young, may pass with profit. R 9 MR. HENLEY'S WORKS The Scottish Leader. — ' His prose technique presents much of the merit, one may say the genius, of his verse ; it has vividness, freshness, concision, boldness, and felicity in epithet.' The Liverpool Daily Post.—' The author of these essays claims for himself "an honest regard for letters." He has more than this, being very much of a literary specialist. . . . His utterances are characterised by a directness and a sureness that are quite French in tone, and with him, as with the French critics, the personal conviction is not unpleasantly obtruded.' The North Metropolitan Press. — ' He who cares for opinions, vigorous and heroic, set forth in a style at once brilliant and convincing, must not miss Views and Reviews. ' The Glasgow Evening Citizen. — 'The author has a fluent and epigram- matic mode of expressing himself which makes his book very readable. The Perthshire Advertiser. — ' Has no equal for brilliancy of style, con- densed genius of expression, and literary grasp. ' The Australasian. — 'Exception may be taken to some of Mr. Henley's judgments, but one is struck by their general fairness, honesty, and sincerity. Moreover, his literary style possesses a certain piquancy and point which are decidedly attractive.' The European Mail. — 'Be his subject what it may, there is a purity of artistic purpose pervading the whole. . . . His readers will find that what he offers them from his stores is deficient neither in savour nor in substance.' The Colonies and India. — 'A guide to common-sense in the way of criticism ; and not only to common-sense, but to style, to versatility of observa- tion, and to truth in the dissection of mental qualities.' The New York Tribune. — 'Original, keen, and felicitous. . . . Delicate and discriminating literary taste, and a happy faculty for analysis and com- parison. ' The Philadelphia Ledger. — ' He interfuses his criticism with the thought, the expressions, the personal glow of the author he is discussing.' The Boston Times. — ' Keen analysis, clever characterisation, and delightful expression.' The Chicago Times. — 'Thoughtful, vigorous, and stimulative.' The San Francisco Chronicle. — 'No more keen and pungent criticism has been printed in these days.' lo MR. HENLEY'S WORKS LYRA HEROICA AN ANTHOLOGY SELECTED FROM THE BEST ENGLISH VERSE OF THE SIXTEENTH, SEVENTEENTH, EIGHTEENTH, AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES The speciality of this Collection is that all the poems chosen are commemorative of heroic action or illustrative of heroic sentiment. Published in two forms : {a) Library Edition of Lyra Heroica, printed on laid paper, and forming a handsome volume, crown 8vo, of xviii + 362 pp., bound in stamped gilt cloth, edges uncut, 3^. 6d. (3rd edition), {b) School Edition, i2mo, cloth, 2s. (3rd issue). A few Large Paper Copies of the first edition, printed on the best Dutch hand-made paper, and bound in Japanese boards, may still be had, price 28J. net. The book will not be re-issued in this form. PRESS NOTICES The Anti-Jacobin. — 'A body of poetry in which everything that goes to make up human life is exhibited in a spacious, lofty, noble, and therefore essentially heroic light.' The Spectator. — ' His selection is, on the whole, as good as can be.' The World. — ' Enough left to stir all the boys' hearts in the kingdom as by trumpet.' The Guardian. — 'Mr. Henley has brought to the task of selection an instinct alike for poetry and for chivalry which seems to us quite wonderfully, and even unerringly, right.' XI MR. HEN LETS WORKS The Saturday Review. — • A very fine book, which will, we hope, help to keep the blood of many English boys from the wretched and morbid stagnation of modernity.' The Scottish Leader. — ' Tr.e ideal gift-book of the year.' The National Observer. — ' On the whole the most representative and the most inspiring anthology with which we are acquainted.' The Glasgow Herald. — ' Mr. Henley has done his work admirably — we may even say perfectly.' The Daily Graphic. — 'A selection which all boys should and most boys will appreciate.' The British Weekly. — ' A collection of the noblest verse in our language.' Louise Chandler Moulton. — 'One of the best anthologies by which literature has ever been enriched. ' The Scotsman. — ' Never was a better book of the kind put together.' The Pall Mall Gazette. — * Every boy ought to have this book, and most men.' The Edinburgh Medical Journal. — 'He has mixed songs of battle, of love, constancy, and patriotism so well that even those who are boys no longer may be stirred and heartened.' The Illustrated London News. — • Worthy to be placed on the same shelf as our "Golden Treasuries." . . .' The Speaker. — ' A splendid book of verse.' Tablet. — 'Is a book among books, an anthology among anthologies.* The St. James's Gazette. — ' Its note is a note of healthy and resolute defiance — the defiance of liberty to bondage, of duty to disgrace, of courage to misfortune.' The Graphic. — ' By far the best of the books of verse for boys. . . .' The National Review. — ' A manly boek, which should delight manly boys and manly men as well.' The Irish Daily Independent. — ' Like the blast of a trumpet, and ii would be hard indeed to make a milksop of a lad nourished on these noble numbers.' Sylvia's Journal. — ^' Beyond comparison the noblest anthology of stirring poems and ballads in the English language— probably in any language. , . .' 12 |!l'||"n|!|[i| 3 1205 01978 9302 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A A 001 435 325 4 :|!!,i!,i.