Transcribed from the 1907 David Nutt edition by Diarmuid Pigott with some additional material and proofing by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org [Picture: Book cover] [Picture: Bust of William Ernest Henley] POEMS _By_ WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY * * * * * _The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet_, _Though to itself it only live and die_. SHAKESPEARE * * * * * _Tenth Impression_ * * * * * LONDON _Published by DAVID NUTT_ at the Sign of the Phœnix IN LONG ACRE 1907 _First Edition printed January_ 1898 _Second Edition printed March_ 1898 _Third Edition printed September_ 1898 _Fourth Edition printed January_ 1900 _Fifth Edition printed December_ 1901 _Sixth Impression printed August_ 1903 _Seventh Impression printed 1904 February_ _Eighth Impression printed May_ 1905 _Ninth Impresion printed April_ 1906 _Tenth Impression printed Nov._ 1907 * * * * * Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty _TO MY WIFE_ _Take_, _dear_, _my little sheaf of songs_, _For_, _old or new_, _All that is good in them belongs_ _Only to you_; _And_, _singing as when all was young_, _They will recall_ _Those others_, _lived but left unsung_— _The bent of all_. W. E. H APRIL 1888 SEPTEMBER 1897. _ADVERTISEMENT_ _My friend and publisher_, _Mr. Alfred Nutt_, _asks me to introduce this re-issue of old work in a new shape_. _At his request_, _then_, _I have to say that nearly all the numbers contained in the present volume are reprinted from_ ‘_A Book of Verses_’ (1888) _and_ ‘_London Voluntaries_’ (1892–3). _From the first of these I have removed some copies of verse which seemed to me scarce worth keeping_; _and I have recovered for it certain others from those publications which had made room for them_. _I have corrected where I could_, _added such dates as I might_, _and_, _by re-arrangement and revision_, _done my best to give my book_, _such as it is_, _its final form_. _If any be displeased by the result_, _I can but submit that my verses are my own_, _and that this is how I would have them read_.