Henley

 Born  on this day in 1849 was the poet William Ernest (W.E.) Henley. I've written before about his most famous poem, the indestructible 'Invictus', and about his classic anthology Lyra Heroica. 
From the age of 12, Henley was dogged by tuberculosis in his bones, which resulted in the amputation of his left leg below the knee. The disease persisted, causing him long periods of intense pain, but he had tremendous vitality and resilience, and a huge presence. His friend Robert Louis Stevenson told him, after the publication of Treasure Island, that he had been the inspiration for Long John Silver, 'the maimed man ruling and dreaded by the sound'. He died at the age of 53 after a fall from a railway carriage caused a fatal flare-up of the tuberculosis. His ashes were buried with his beloved daughter Margaret, who had died at the age of five. (It was Margaret who had inspired J.M. Barrie to name his heroine in Peter Pan 'Wendy', the infant Margaret having habitually greeted Barrie as 'fwendy-wendy'.)
  With so much to contend with in his life, it is no wonder that Henley's poems tend to be muscular exercises in sinew-stiffening, but he had a considerable range, writing sometimes in a stark social-realist style, at other times favouring a quieter, melancholic manner, as in this piece, set, like Gray's 'Elegy', in the English twilight – 

A lark twitters from
the quiet skies:
And from the west,
Where the sun, his day's work ended,
Lingers as in content,
There falls on the old, grey city
An influence luminous and serene,
A shining peace.

The smoke ascends
In a rosy-and-golden haze. The spires
Shine and are changed. In the valley
Shadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,
Closing his benediction,
Sinks, and the darkening air
Thrills with a sense of the triumphing night—
Night with her train of stars
And her great gift of sleep.

So be my passing!
My task accomplish'd and the long day done,
My wages taken, and in my heart
Some late lark singing,
Let me be gather'd to the quiet west,
The sundown splendid and serene,
Death.

And sometimes Henley could be playful, as in this jolly villanelle, written at a time when everyone was writing them –

A dainty thing's the Villanelle.
Sly, musical, a jewel in rhyme,
It serves its purpose passing well.

A doublc-clappered silver bell
That must be made to clink in chime,
A dainty thing's the Villanelle;

And if you wish to flute a spell,
Or ask a meeting 'neath the lime,
It serves its purpose passing well.

You must not ask of it the swell
Of organs grandiose and sublime –
A dainty thing's the Villanelle;

And, filled with sweetness, as a shell
Is filled with sound, and launched in time,
It serves its purpose passing well.

Still fair to see and good to smell
As in the quaintness of its prime,
A dainty thing's the Villanelle,
It serves its purpose passing well.

Henley's chief cultural legacy is of course 'Invictus', but a more surprising borrowing was the title and theme of Joe Orton's breakthrough play, The Ruffian on the Stair, taken from Henley's bleak 'Madam Life's a piece in bloom' – 

Madam Life's a piece in bloom
    Death goes dogging everywhere:
  She's the tenant of the room,
    He's the ruffian on the stair.
    You shall see her as a friend,
  You shall bilk him once or twice;
    But he'll trap you in the end,
  And he'll stick you for her price.
  With his kneebones at your chest,
  And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason — plead — protest!
  Clutching at her petticoat;
  But she's heard it all before,
Well she knows you've had your fun,
  Gingerly she gains the door,
And your little job is done.

But let's end with something jollier. Here is 'In Rotten Row' –

In Rotten Row a cigarette
I sat and smoked, with no regret
For all the tumult that had been.
The distances were still and green,
And streaked with shadows cool and wet.

Two sweethearts on a bench were set,
Two birds among the boughs were met;
So love and song were heard and seen
In Rotten Row.

A horse or two there was to fret
The soundless sand; but work and debt,
Fair flowers and falling leaves between,
While clocks are chiming clear and keen,
A man may very well forget
In Rotten Row.

Footnote: I have been informed that the photo above is not of Henley but of another extravagantly bearded poet, Joaquin Miller. Whoops. Here is Henley –