The Ways Are Green

The ways are green with the gladdening sheen
Of the young year's fairest daughter.
O, the shadows that fleet o'er the springing wheat!
O, the magic of running water!
The spirit of spring is in every thing,
The banners of spring are streaming,
We march to a tune from the fifes of June,
And life's a dream worth dreaming.

It's all very well to sit and spell
At the lesson there's no gainsaying;
But what the deuce are wont and use
When the whole mad world's a-maying?
When the meadow glows, and the orchard snows,
And the air's with love-motes teeming,
When fancies break, and the senses wake,
O, life's a dream worth dreaming!

What Nature has writ with her lusty wit
Is worded so wisely and kindly
That whoever has dipped in her manuscript
Must up and follow her blindly.
Now the summer prime is her blithest rhyme
In the being and the seeming,
And they that have heard the overword
Know life's a dream worth dreaming.

1878

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

The West A Glimmering Lake Of Light

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William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

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William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

English

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To S. C. Blithe Dreams Arise To Greet Us

Blithe dreams arise to greet us,
And life feels clean and new,
For the old love comes to meet us
In the dawning and the dew.
O'erblown with sunny shadows,
O'ersped with winds at play,
The woodlands and the meadows
Are keeping holiday.
Wild foals are scampering, neighing,
Brave merles their hautboys blow:
Come! let us go a-maying
As in the Long-Ago.

Here we but peak and dwindle:
The clank of chain and crane,
The whir of crank and spindle
Bewilder heart and brain;
The ends of our endeavour
Are merely wealth and fame,
Yet in the still Forever
We're one and all the same;
Delaying, still delaying,
We watch the fading west:
Come! let us go a-maying,
Nor fear to take the best.

Yet beautiful and spacious
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An Ode To Spring (To Grant And Nellie Allen)

Is it the Spring?
    Or are the birds all wrong
That play on flute and viol,
    A thousand strong,
In minstrel galleries
    Of the long deep wood,
Epiphanies
    Of bloom and bud.

Grave minstrels those,
    Of deep responsive chant;
But see how yonder goes,
    Dew-drunk, with giddy slant,
Yon Shelley-lark,
    And hark!
Him on the giddy brink
    Of pearly heaven
His fairy anvil clink.

Or watch, in fancy,
    How the brimming note
Falls, like a string of pearls,
    From out his heavenly throat;
Or like a fountain
    In Hesperides,
Raining its silver rain,
    In gleam and chime,
On backs of ivory girls -
    Twice happy rhyme!

Ah, none of these
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The Progress Of Spring

The groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould,
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea,
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold
That trembles not to kisses of the bee:
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves
The spear of ice has wept itself away,
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves
O'er his uncertain shadow droops the day.
She comes! The loosen'd rivulets run;
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair;
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun,
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bar
To breaths of balmier air;

Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her,
About her glance the tits, and shriek the jays,
Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker,
The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze,
While round her brows a woodland cul...

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Catkins

I.

Misty are the far-off hills
And misty are the near;
Purple hazes dimly lie
Veiling hill and field and sky,
Marshes where the hylas cry,
Like a myriad bills
Piping, "Spring is here!"

II.

A redbird flits,
Then sings and sits
And calls to his mate,
"She is late! she is late!
How long, how long must the woodland wait
For its emerald plumes
And its jewelled blooms?
She is late! she is late!"

III.

Along the stream,
A cloudy gleam,
The pussy-willows, tufted white,
Make of each tree a mighty light;
Pearl and silver and glimmering gray
They tassel the boughs of the willow way;
And as they swing they seem to say,
With mouths of bloom
And warm perfume:

IV.

"Awake! awa...

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The West A Glimmering Lake Of Light

The West a glimmering lake of light,
A dream of pearly weather,
The first of stars is burning white -
The star we watch together.
Is April dead?    The unresting year
Will shape us our September,
And April's work is done, my dear -
Do you not remember?

O gracious eve!    O happy star,
Still-flashing, glowing, sinking! -
Who lives of lovers near or far
So glad as I in thinking?
The gallant world is warm and green,
For May fulfils November.
When lights and leaves and loves have been,
Sweet, will you remember?

O star benignant and serene,
I take the good to-morrow,
That fills from verge to verge my dream,
With all its joy and sorrow!
The old, sweet spell is unforgot
That turns to June December;
And, tho' the world remembe...

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To Spring

Fairest and loveliest of the sun-born train
That o'er the varying year alternate reign;
Whose eye, soft-beaming with thy father's fire,
Fond Nature woos with ever-fresh desire,
Enchanting Spring! O let thy votary's lay
Invite thy angel smile, thy genial sway!

Still do thy beauties, to my partial heart,
Whene'er I gaze, superior joys impart:
When winter's cloudy veil thou draw'st away                            }
And, vested with the sun's mild, dewy ray,                            }
First to the longing earth thy charms thou dost display; }
Or when Aurora, to the lark's gay song,
Full of thy spirit, lightly trips along;
With joyful kisses greets the first-born flowers,
And o'er them breathes thy warm, refreshing showers;
Or when, on shadowy pillow in the west...

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