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About William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley is remembered for a single poem, Invictus, and deserves to be remembered for considerably more. A poet, critic, and literary editor whose magazines published the early work of Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, H.G. Wells, and W.B.

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More by William Ernest Henley

  1. Invictus
  2. Life Is Bitter
  3. Ways Of Death
  4. Gods Are Dead
  5. Friends Old Friends
  6. On Way To Kew
  7. Double Ballad Of Life And Death
  8. Beside Idle Summer Sea

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You are here: Home » British/American Poets » William Ernest Henley » Where Forlorn Sunsets Flare...


William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

Where Forlorn Sunsets Flare...

Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade
On desolate sea and lonely sand,
Out of the silence and the shade
What is the voice of strange command
Calling you still, as friend calls friend
With love that cannot brook delay
To rise and follow the ways that wend
Over the hills and far away?
Hark in the city, street on street
A roaring reach of death and life,
Of vortices that clash and fleet
And ruin in appointed strife,
Hark to it calling, calling clear,
Calling until you cannot stay
From dearer things than your own most dear
Over the hills and far away?
Out of the sound of the ebb-and-flow,
Out of the sight of the lamp and star,
It calls you where the good winds blow,
And the unchanging meadows are;
From faded hopes and hopes agleam,
It calls you, calls you night and day
Beyond the dark into the dream
Over the hills and far away.

More by William Ernest Henley

  1. Invictus
  2. Life Is Bitter
  3. Ways Of Death
  4. Gods Are Dead
  5. Friends Old Friends

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