There Is A Wheel Inside My Head

There is a wheel inside my head
Of wantonness and wine,
An old, cracked fiddle is begging without,
But the wind with scents of the sea is fed,
And the sun seems glad to shine.

The sun and the wind are akin to you,
As you are akin to June.
But the fiddle! . . . It giggles and twitters about,
And, love and laughter! who gave him the cue? -
He's playing your favourite tune.

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

Orientale

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

Rhymes And Rhythms - VIII

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

Invictus

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

Kate-A-Whimsies, John-A-Dreams

William Ernest Henley, 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.

Double Ballade Of Life And Fate

Fools may pine, and sots may swill,
Cynics gibe, and prophets rail,
Moralists may scourge and drill,
Preachers prose, and fainthearts quail.
Let them whine, or threat, or wail!
Till the touch of Circumstance
Down to darkness sink the scale,
Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.

What if skies be wan and chill?
What if winds be harsh and stale?
Presently the east will thrill,
And the sad and shrunken sail,
Bellying with a kindly gale,
Bear you sunwards, while your chance
Sends you back the hopeful hail:-
'Fate's a fiddler, Life's a dance.'

Idle shot or coming bill,
Hapless love or broken bail,
Gulp it (never chew your pill!),
And, if Burgundy should fail,
Try the humbler pot of ale!
Over all is heaven's expanse.
Gold's to fi...

William Ernest Henley

Ballade Made In The Hot Weather - To C. M.

Fountains that frisk and sprinkle
The moss they overspill;
Pools that the breezes crinkle;
The wheel beside the mill,
With its wet, weedy frill;
Wind-shadows in the wheat;
A water-cart in the street;
The fringe of foam that girds
An islet's ferneries;
A green sky's minor thirds -
To live, I think of these!

Of ice and glass the tinkle,
Pellucid, silver-shrill;
Peaches without a wrinkle;
Cherries and snow at will,
From china bowls that fill
The senses with a sweet
Incuriousness of heat;
A melon's dripping sherds;
Cream-clotted strawberries;
Dusk dairies set with curds -
To live, I think of these!

Vale-lily and periwinkle;
Wet stone-crop on the sill;
The look of leaves a-twinkle
With windlets clear and stil...

William Ernest Henley

The Wheel Of The Breast.

        Through rivers of veins on the nameless quest
    The tide of my life goes hurriedly sweeping,
        Till it reaches that curious wheel o' the breast,
        The human heart, which is never at rest.
    Faster, faster, it cries, and leaping,
        Plunging, dashing, speeding away,
        The wheel and the river work night and day.

        I know not wherefore, I know not whither,
    This strange tide rushes with such mad force:
        It glides on hither, it slides on thither,
    Over and over the selfsame course,
    With never an outlet and never a source;
        And it lashes itself to the heat of passion
        And whirls the heart in a mill-wheel fashion.

        I can hear in the hush of the still, still night,
    The ceaseless...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

An East Wind

The glitter of wheels far down the street
    (Ah me, and alack a day.)
And I heard the thud of his horse's feet
    Beating a roundelay.
And I felt a little song coming, coming
Over my lips as humming, humming,
    I turned my eyes that way.

Somebody passed, who was wont to pause:
    (Ah me, and alack a day.)
He bowed and smiled; yet for some cause
    The mirth went out of my lay.
A wind from the east rose, sighing, sighing,
I felt my little song dying, dying,
    She laughed as they rode away.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Rhymes And Rhythms - XII

Some starlit garden grey with dew,
Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,
What matters where, so I and you
Are worthy our desire?

Behind, a past that scolds and jeers
For ungirt loin and lamp unlit;
In front the unmanageable years,
The trap upon the pit;

Think on the shame of dreams for deeds,
The scandal of unnatural strife,
The slur upon immortal needs,
The treason done to life:

Arise! no more a living lie
And with me quicken and control
A memory that shall magnify
The universal Soul.

William Ernest Henley

Rhymes And Rhythms - XI

Gulls in an aery morrice
Gleam and vanish and gleam . . .
The full sea, sleepily basking,
Dreams under skies of dream.

Gulls in an aery morrice
Circle and swoop and close . . .
Fuller and ever fuller
The rose of the morning blows.

Gulls in an aery morrice
Frolicking float and fade . . .
O the way of a bird in the sunshine,
The way of a man with a maid!

William Ernest Henley