The Wan Sun Westers, Faint And Slow

The wan sun westers, faint and slow;
The eastern distance glimmers gray;
An eerie haze comes creeping low
Across the little, lonely bay;
And from the sky-line far away
About the quiet heaven are spread
Mysterious hints of dying day,
Thin, delicate dreams of green and red.

And weak, reluctant surges lap
And rustle round and down the strand.
No other sound . . . If it should hap,
The ship that sails from fairy-land!
The silken shrouds with spells are manned,
The hull is magically scrolled,
The squat mast lives, and in the sand
The gold prow-griffin claws a hold.

It steals to seaward silently;
Strange fish-folk follow thro' the gloom;
Great wings flap overhead; I see
The Castle of the Drowsy Doom
Vague thro' the changeless twilight loom,
Enchanted, hushed.    And ever there
She slumbers in eternal bloom,
Her cushions hid with golden hair.

1875

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic, and editor. Despite battling tuberculosis from a young age, Henley is best known for his resilience and strength, qualities exemplified in his most famous poem, 'Invictus'. Henley was also a notable figure in the literary circles of his time, befriending and influencing key writers, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, who modeled the character Long John Silver after him.

William Ernest Henley

Croluis - To G. W.

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

Rhymes And Rhythms - XIV

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

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William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

Crosses And Troubles

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

English

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Midsummer midnight skies,
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Elegiac

Dark is the morning with mist; in the narrow mouth of the harbor
    Motionless lies the sea, under its curtain of cloud;
Dreamily glimmer the sails of ships on the distant horizon,
    Like to the towers of a town, built on the verge of the sea.

Slowly and stately and still, they sail forth into the ocean;
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Farther and farther away, borne on by unsatisfied longings,
    Unto Hesperian isles, unto Ausonian shores.

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Spellbound by a sweet fantasy
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The rich lights fade out one by one,
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Attadale West Highlands - To A. J.

A black and glassy float, opaque and still,
The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep,
Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep
The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill;
Heather, and corn, and wisps of loitering haze;
The wee white cots, black-hatted, plumed with smoke;
The braes beyond - and when the ripple awoke,
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A straggling crow called high and thin.    A bird
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Strange vowels, mysterious gutturals, idly heard.

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By The Summer Sea

Sunlight and shrill cicada and the low,
Slow, sleepy kissing of the sea and shore,
And rumor of the wind. The morning wore
A sullen face of fog that lifted slow,
Letting her eyes gleam through of grayest glow;
Wearing a look like that which once she wore
When, Gloucesterward from Dogtown there, they bore
Some old witchwife with many a gibe and blow.
But now the day has put off every care,
And sits at peace beside the smiling sea,
Dreaming bright dreams with lazy-lidded eyes:
One is a castle, precipiced in air,
And one a golden galleons can it be
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The Isle Of Sleep.

In those dark mornings, deep in June,
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And heavy dews slip down the leaves,
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    Slept on the hill-tops far away.

My window looked into the dawn,
    The slumbering dawn that was so nigh,
The shadow of the hills was drawn
    In waving lines against the sky.
But warmer hues began to tip
    The edges of the mountain cloud
And morning's rosy cheek and lip
    Glowed softly through her snow-pale shroud.

I turned and gazed into the west,
    The river murmured in my ear
'Gone night, and silence, dreams and rest,
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...

Kate Seymour Maclean