William Ernest Henlei fue un poeta inglés.
De niño sufrió tuberculosis, lo que finalmente resultó en la amputación de una pierna y 12 meses de recuperación en la famosa Enfermería de Edimburgo. Allí escribió varios poemas de verso libre que establecieron su reputación y que fueron incluidos en A Book of Verses . Su incapacitación física dejó otro legado literario en la forma de Long John Silver, el personaje con pata de palo creado por su amigo de Edimburgo, Robert Louis Stevenson en la novela La isla del tesoro . Henley y Stevenson colaboraron en cuatro obras de teatro: Deacon Brodie , Beau Austin , Admiral Guinea y Macaire .
Sus otras colecciones de poesía incluyen Canción de la espada , London Voluntaries , Colección de poemas , Hawthorn and Lavender y In Hospital . Este último incluye su poema más conocido, "Invictus" .
Fue crítico y editor de la Revista de Arte , y del Scots Observer desde 1899. En 1891 esta revista se transformó en el National Observer y transferida a Londres desde donde continuó siendo su editor. El periódico publicó los primeros trabajos de Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Sir James Barrie y Rudyard Kipling. Henley editó la edición centenaria de los poemas de Robert Burns, y fue uno de los compiladores de un diccionario en 7 volúmenes de idiomas . Murió a los 53 años de edad.
Wikipedia
“Soy el amo de mi destino;
soy el capitán de mi alma.”
I am the master of my fate,<br>I am the captain of my soul.
Fuente: Página en el sitio Poetry Foundation https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51642/invictus
Fuente: Invictus (1888).
"Hugo"
Views and Reviews (1889)
Epilogue
Hawthorn and Lavender (1901)
Contexto: A people, haggard with defeat,
Asks if there be a God; yet sets its teeth,
Faces calamity, and goes into the fire
Another than it was. And in wild hours
A people, roaring ripe
With victory, rises, menaces, stands renewed,
Sheds its old piddling aims,
Approves its virtue, puts behind itself
The comfortable dream, and goes,
Armoured and militant,
New-pithed, new-souled, new-visioned, up the steeps
To those great altitudes, whereat the weak
Live not. But only the strong
Have leave to strive, and suffer, and achieve.
Fuente: Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XXI
Contexto: Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.
For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.
"Prologue"
Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms
Contexto: p>Those incantations of the Spring
That made the heart a centre of miracles
Grow formal, and the wonder-working bours
Arise no more — no more.Something is dead...
'Tis time to creep in close about the fire
And tell grey tales of what we were, and dream
Old dreams and faded, and as we may rejoice
In the young life that round us leaps and laughs,
A fountain in the sunshine, in the pride
Of God's best gift that to us twain returns,
Dear Heart, no more — no more.</p
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XVI
Fuente: Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XXI
Contexto: Love, which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.
For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.
“Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.”
Invictus (1875)
Contexto: In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XII
Contexto: p>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
Some memory that shall magnify
The universal Soul.</p
"Envoy"
Poems (1898)
Fuente: Hawthorn and Lavender (1901), XI
Epilogue
Hawthorn and Lavender (1901)
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, III
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XII
“What have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?”
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XXV
</p>
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XIV
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, II
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XV
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, II
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XVI
Fuente: Poems (1898), Rhymes And Rhythms, XV
This may have inspired later lines of "A Challenge" from "Quatrains" by James Benjamin Kenyon, published in An American Anthology, 1787-1900 (1901) edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman:
Arise, O Soul, and gird thee up anew,
Though the black camel Death kneel at thy gate;
No beggar thou that thou for alms shouldst sue:
Be the proud captain still of thine own fate.
Invictus (1875)
A Book of Verses (1888)
A Book of Verses (1888)
