Or ever the knightly years were gone, with the old world to the grave, I was a King in Babylon and you were a Christian Slave. I saw, I took, I cast you by, I bent and broke your pride...… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share
So be my passing! My task accomplished and the long day done, My wages taken, and in my heart Some late lark singing, Let me be gathered in the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene, Death. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
“It matters not how strait the gate. How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Life is a smoke that curls- Curls in a flickering skein, That winds and whisks and whirls, A figment thin and vain, Into the vast inane. One end for hut and hall. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share
Into the winter's gray delight, Into the summer's golden dream, Holy and high and impartial, Death, the mother of Life, Mingles all men for… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Behold me waiting—waiting for the knife… The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform, The drunken dark, the little death-in-life… [F]ace to face with chance, I… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
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. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Shakespeare and Rembrandt have in common the faculty of quickening speculation and compelling the minds of men to combat and discussion. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Who but knows How it goes! Life's a last year's Nightingale, Love's a last year's rose. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Or ever the knightly years were gone, with the old world to the grave, I was a King in Babylon and you were a Christian Slave. I saw, I took, I cast you by, I bent and broke your pride... And a myriad suns have set and shone, since then upon the grave, Decreed by the King in Babylon, to… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share
And lo, the Hospital, gray, quiet, old, Where life and death like friendly chafferers meet. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Now, to read poetry at all is to have an ideal anthology of one's own, and in that possession to be incapable of content… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
![“Behold me waiting—waiting for the knife… The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform, The drunken dark, the little death-in-life… [F]ace to face with chance, I shrink a little: My hopes are strong, my will is something weak. ...I am ready But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle: You carry Cæsar and…” quote by William Ernest Henley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a68/william-ernest-henley-15193_aces_behold-me-waiting-waiting-for-the-knife_269698.jpg)
