Behold me waitingโwaiting 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 Cรฆsar and his fortunesโsteady!
William Ernest HenleyThis is the merit and distinction of art: to be more real than reality, to be not nature but nature's essence.
William Ernest HenleyNow, to read poetry at all is to have an ideal anthology of one's own, and in that possession to be incapable of content with the anthologies of all the world besides.
William Ernest Henley