Burly is a man of great presence; he commands a larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass of character than most men. It has been said of him that his presence could be felt in a room you entered blindfold; and the same, I think, has been said of other powerful constitutions condemned to much physical inaction. There is something boisterous and piratic in Burly’s manner of talk which suits well enough with this impression. He will roar you down, he will bury his face in his hands, he will undergo passions of revolt and agony; and meanwhile his attitude of mind is really both conciliatory and receptive; and after Pistol has been out-Pistol’d, and the welkin rung for hours, you begin to perceive a certain subsidence in these spring torrents, points of agreement issue, and you end up arm-in-arm, and in a glow of mutual admiration.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: Memories and Portraits (1887)
Stevenson’s description of Henley as a man ‘condemned to much physical inaction’ refers to the illness he suffered as a child – tubercular arthritis. Doctors amputated one foot, and to save the other Henley went in 1873 to Edinburgh, where Lister treated him in the Infirmary. During his year of hospitalization he worked at his Hospital Sketches, first published in the Cornhill in 1875. It was in hospital that he was introduced to Stevenson, who became a close friend, until they parted on bitter terms. Henley’s sonnet ‘Apparition’ from In Hospital paints a brutally honest but affectionate portrait of Stevenson. The character of Long John Silver in Treasure Island was based on Henley, and the two friends collaborated on a number of plays: Deacon Brodie (1880), Admiral Guinea (1884), Beau Austin (1884) and Macaire (1885). His own literary output includes several volumes of poetry: A Book of Verses (1888), The Song of the Sword and Other Verses (1892), London Voluntaries (1893) and For England’s Sake (1900). He also compiled several anthologies, the most popular of which was Lyra Heroica (1891), a selection of verse for boys. Henley broke away from many of the old conventions of genteel late-Victorian verse and became a forerunner of the imagists. He was also a most original editor of various newspapers, magazines and journals, publishing works by Hardy, Kipling, Stevenson and Yeats. Painting was one of his hobbies – he became editor of The Magazine of Art in 1882 and promoted the work of both Whistler and Rodin. Henley dedicated one of his best poems (‘Under a stagnant sky …’), a free verse evocation of the Thames, to Whistler, whose pictures he greatly admired. The model for the character of Wendy Darling in J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan was Henley’s own daughter, Margaret, who died aged five of cerebral meningitis. The little girl was very fond of Barrie and used to call him ‘fwendy’ – her version of ‘friendly’. The title of Henley’s best-known poem, ‘Invictus’ (‘Unconquered’), was chosen by John Carlin for his book about the 1995 Rugby World Cup Tournament staged in Cape Town; discussing the poem, Carlin states that Nelson Mandela pasted a copy of it on the wall of his cell on Robben Island, thus giving him heart ‘during his long prison years’. Fritz Hart composed more than twenty songs to Henley’s verse.
From the brake the Nightingale
Sings exulting to the Rose;
Though he sees her waxing pale
In her passionate repose,
While she triumphs waxing frail,
Fading even while she glows:
Though he knows
How it goes –
Knows of last year’s Nightingale
Dead with last year’s Rose.
Wise the enamoured Nightingale,
Wise the well-belovèd Rose!
Love and life shall still prevail,
Nor the silence at the close
Break the magic of the tale
In the telling, though it shows –
Who but knows
How it goes! –
Life a last year’s Nightingale,
Love a last year’s Rose.
The nightingale has a lyre of gold,
The lark’s is a clarion call,
And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute,
But I love him best of all.
For his song is all of the joy of life,
And we in the mad, spring weather,
We two have listened till he sang
Our hearts and lips together.
(Beach, Delius, Hart)
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.
(Hart)
Life in her creaking shoes
Goes, and more formal grows,
A round of calls and cues:
Love blows as the wind blows.
Blows! … in the quiet close
As in the roaring mart,
By ways no mortal knows
Love blows into the heart.
The stars some cadence use,
Forthright the river flows,
In order fall the dews,
Love blows as the wind blows:
Blows! … and what reckoning shows
The courses of his chart?
A spirit that comes and goes,
Love blows into the heart.
Fill a glass with golden wine,
And the while your lips are wet
Set their perfume unto mine,
And forget,
Leaves us less of life to live.
Yet again! Your whim and mine
In a happy while have met.
All your sweets to me resign,
Nor regret
That we press with every breath,
Sighed or singing, nearer death.
(Quilter)
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
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.