William Ernest Henley: "At Queensferrry".

South Queensferry

The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean
We bowled along a road that curved a spine
Superbly sinuous and serpentine
Thro' silent symphonies of summer green.

"Old Pier, Queensferry" de Alexander Wilson Hill, año 1920.

Sudden the Forth came on us--sad of mien,
No cloud to colour it, no breeze to line:
A sheet of dark, dull glass, without a sign
Of life or death, two spits of sand between.

South Queensferry High Street.

Water and sky merged blank in mist together,
The Fort loomed spectral, and the Guardship's spars
Traced vague, black shadows on the shimmery glaze:
We felt the dim, strange years, the grey, strange weather,
The still, strange land, unvexed of sun or stars,
Where Lancelot rides clanking thro' the haze.

'Robert the Bruce en Hawes Pier, South Queensferry'

Publicado por:  Ondine

William Ernest Henley: "From a Window in Princes Street"

Panorámica de Princes Street.

 Above the Crags that fade and gloom 

  Starts the bare knee of Arthur's Seat; 

 Ridged high against the evening bloom,

  The Old Town rises, street on street;  

Princes  Street, the castle and Scott Monument. (Edinburgh, Scotland).

With lamps bejewelled, straight ahead,

   Like rampired walls the houses lean, 

  All spired and domed and turreted,   

  Sheer to the valley's darkling green;  

   Ranged in mysterious disarray,   

The Castle, menacing and austere,

Looms through the lingering last of day;

  And in the silver dusk you hear,  

Reverberated from crag and scar,

Bold bugles blowing points of war.

Vista de Edinburgo desde el Castillo.

Fuentes de imágenes:
The Library of Congress
www.thebigfoto.com

Publicado por:  Ondine

William E. Henley: "On the way to Kew".

On the way to Kew,
By the river old and gray,
Where in the Long Ago
We laughed and loitered so,
I met a ghost to-day,
A ghost that told of you -
A ghost of low replies
And sweet, inscrutable eyes
Coming up from Richmond
As you used to do.

By the river old and gray,
The enchanted Long Ago
Murmured and smiled anew.
On the way to Kew,
March had the laugh of May,
The bare boughs looked aglow,
And old, immortal words
Sang in my breast like birds,
Coming up from Richmond
As I used with you.

With the life of Long Ago
Lived my thought of you.
By the river old and gray
Flowing his appointed way
As I watched I knew
What is so good to know -
Not in vain, not in vain,
Shall I look for you again
Coming up from Richmond
On the way to Kew.

 Publicado por:  Ondine

William Ernest Henley: "Attadale, West Highlands"

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,

 They wavered with the jarred and wavering glaze.

The air was hushed and dreamy. Evermore

A noise of running water whispered near.

A straggling crow called high and thin. A bird

Trilled from the birch-leaves. Round the shingled shore,

Yellow with weed, there wandered, vague and clear,

Strange vowels, mysterious gutturals, idly heard. 

Publicado por:  Ondine

William E. Henley: "A Desolate Shore"

A desolate shore,
The sinister seduction of the Moon,
The menace of the irreclaimable Sea.

Flaunting, tawdry and grim,
From cloud to cloud along her beat,
Leering her battered and inveterate leer,
She signals where he prowls in the dark alone,
Her horrible old man,
Mumbling old oaths and warming
His villainous old bones with villainous talk -
The secrets of their grisly housekeeping
Since they went out upon the pad
In the first twilight of self-conscious Time:
Growling, hideous and hoarse,
Tales of unnumbered Ships,
Goodly and strong, Companions of the Advance,
In some vile alley of the night
Waylaid and bludgeoned -
Dead.

Deep cellared in primeval ooze,
Ruined, dishonoured, spoiled,
They lie where the lean water-worm
Crawls free of their secrets, and their broken sides
Bulge with the slime of life. Thus they abide,
Thus fouled and desecrate,
The summons of the Trumpet, and the while
These Twain, their murderers,
Unravined, imperturbable, unsubdued,
Hang at the heels of their children--She aloft
As in the shining streets,
He as in ambush at some accomplice door.

The stalwart Ships,
The beautiful and bold adventurers!
Stationed out yonder in the isle,
The tall Policeman,
Flashing his bull's-eye, as he peers
About him in the ancient vacancy,
Tells them this way is safety--this way home.

Publicado por:  Charlot  y  Ondine

William Ernest Henley: "In Fisherrow"

A hard north-easter fifty winters long
Has bronzed and shrivelled sere her face and neck;
Her locks are wild and grey, her teeth a wreck;
Her foot is vast, her bowed leg spare and strong.
A wide blue cloak, a squat and sturdy throng
Of curt blue coats, a mutch without a speck,
A white vest broidered black, her person deck,
Nor seems their picked, stern, old-world quaintness wrong.
Her great creel forehead-slung, she wanders nigh,
Easing the heavy strap with gnarled, brown fingers,
The spirit of traffic watchful in her eye,
Ever and anon imploring you to buy,
As looking down the street she onward lingers,
Reproachful, with a strange and doleful cry.

Publicado por:  Chabela  y  Ondine

William Ernest Henley:

"In the year that's come and gone"

"El Beso", de Gustav Klimt.

Data de  1907 y se exhibió por primera vez en  1908,  en una muestra titulada "Los Amantes".

In the year that's come and gone, love, his flying feather 
Stooping slowly, gave us heart, and bade us walk together.
In the year that's coming on, though many a troth be broken,
We at least will not forget aught that love hath spoken.

In the year that's come and gone, dear, we wove a tether
All of gracious words and thoughts, binding two together.
In the year that's coming on with its wealth of roses
We shall weave it stronger, yet, ere the circle closes.

In the year that's come and gone, in the golden weather,
Sweet, my sweet, we swore to keep the watch of life together.
In the year that's coming on, rich in joy and sorrow,
We shall light our lamp, and wait life's mysterious morrow.
 

Publicado por:  Ondine

William Ernest Henley: "A Love By The Sea" 

"Message d’Amour des Dauphins"  (Mensaje de Amor de los Delfines)  de Sandro Del-Prete.

Out of the starless night that covers me,
(O tribulation of the wind that rolls!)
 Black as the cloud of some tremendous spell,

The susurration of the sighing sea

Sounds like the sobbing whisper of two souls

That tremble in a passion of farewell.

To the desires that trebled life in me,
(O melancholy of the wind that rolls!)
The dreams that seemed the future to foretell,
The hopes that mounted herward like the sea, 
To all the sweet things sent on happy souls,

I cannot choose but bid a mute farewell.

And to the girl who was so much to me
(O lamentation of this wind that rolls!)
Since I may not the life of her compel,
Out of the night, beside the sounding sea,
Full of the love that might have blent our souls,

A sad, a last, a long, supreme farewell.
 

Publicado por:  Ondine