Mors Janua

    Pilgrim, no shrine is here, no prison, no inn:
        Thy fear and thy belief alike are fond:
    Death is a gate, and holds no room within:
        Pass--to the road beyond.

Henry John Newbolt

Sir Henry John Newbolt was an English poet and author, famous for his ballads such as 'Vitaï Lampada'. He graduated from Oxford and was called to the bar, but he is better remembered for his literary contributions than his legal career. Newbolt served as a government advisor on military and naval literature during World War I. He was knighted in 1915 for his services to literature. Newbolt's work often reflected themes of patriotism and duty.

Henry John Newbolt

Songs of the Fleet - The Middle Watch

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Against Oblivion

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

Egeria's Silence

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

On the Death of a Noble Lady

Henry John Newbolt, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Outward Bound

Dear Earth, near Earth, the clay that made us men,
    The land we sowed,
    The hearth that glowed---
    O Mother, must we bid farewell to thee?
Fast dawns the last dawn, and what shall comfort then
    The lonely hearts that roam the outer sea?

Gray wakes the daybreak, the shivering sails are set,
    To misty deeps
    The channel sweeps---
    O Mother, think on us who think on thee!
Earth-home, birth-home, with love remember yet
    The sons in exile on the eternal sea.

Henry John Newbolt

Il Santo

    Alas! alas! what impious hands are these?
    They have cut down my dark mysterious trees,
    Defied the brooding spell
    That sealed my sacred well,
    Broken my fathers' fixed and ancient bars,
    And on the mouldering shade
    Wherein my dead were laid
    Let in the cold clear aspect of the stars.

    Slumber hath held the grove for years untold:
    Is there no reverence for a peace so old?
    Is there no seemly awe
    For bronze-engraven law,
    For dust beatified and saintly name?
    When they shall see the shrine
    Princes have held divine,
    Will they not bow before the eternal flame?

    Vain! vain! the wind of heaven for ages long
    Hath whispered manhood, "Let thine arm be strong!
    Hew down and fling awa...

Henry John Newbolt

O Pulchritudo

O Saint whose thousand shrines our feet have trod
    And our eyes loved thy lamp's eternal beam,
Dim earthly radiance of the Unknown God,
    Hope of the darkness, light of them that dream,
Far off, far off and faint, O glimmer on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.

O Word whose meaning every sense hath sought,
    Voice of the teeming field and grassy mound,
Deep-whispering fountain of the wells of thought,
    Will of the wind and soul of all sweet sound,
Far off, far off and faint, O murmur on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.

Henry John Newbolt

The Last Word

Before the April night was late
A rider came to the castle gate;
A rider breathing human breath,
But the words he spoke were the words of Death.

"Greet you well from the King our lord,
He marches hot for the eastward ford;
Living or dying, all or one,
Ye must keep the ford till the race be run.

Sir Alain rose with lips that smiled,
He kissed his wife, he kissed his child:
Before the April night was late
Sir Alain rode from the castle gate.

He called his men-at-arms by name,
But one there was uncalled that came:
He bade his troop behind him ride,
But there was one that rode beside.

        "Why will you spur so fast to die?
        Be wiser ere the night go by.
        A message late is a message lost;
        For all your...

Henry John Newbolt

The Passing Strange

Out of the earth to rest or range
Perpetual in perpetual change,
The unknown passing through the strange.

Water and saltness held together
To tread the dust and stand the weather,
And plough the field and stretch the tether,

To pass the wine-cup and be witty,
Water the sands and build the city,
Slaughter like devils and have pity,

Be red with rage and pale with lust,
Make beauty come, make peace, make trust,
Water and saltness mixed with dust;

Drive over earth, swim under sea,
Fly in the eagles secrecy,
Guess where the hidden comets be;

Know all the deathy seeds that still
Queen Helens beauty, Caesars will,
And slay them even as they kill;

Fashion an altar for a rood,
Defile a continent with blood,
And...

John Masefield

Euthanasia

"O Life, O Beyond,
Thou art strange, thou art sweet!"
--Mrs. Browning.


Dread phantom, with pale finger on thy lips,
    Who dost unclose the awful doors for each,
        That ope but once, and are unclosed no more,
            Turn the key gently in the mystic ward,
            And silently unloose the silver cord;
        Lay thy chill seal of silence upon speech,
    And mutely beckon through the soundless door
To endless night, and silence and eclipse.

Even now the soul unfettered may explore
    On its swift wing beyond the gates of morn,
        (Unravelled all the weary round of years)
            And stand, unfenced of time and crowding space,
            With love's fond instinct in that primal place,
        The distant north...

Kate Seymour Maclean