Hospital Poems, Part Three: "Waiting"

W. E. Henley (1849-1903) wrote a sequence of 28 poems titled "In Hospital."  The poems are based upon his 20-month stay in The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh from 1873 to 1875, where he was treated for tuberculosis by Dr. Joseph Lister (namesake of, yes, Listerine).  He had suffered from the disease from the age of twelve.  This all sounds very bleak, I know.  But Henley brings (trust me!) some humor to the whole business.  Although there is, of necessity, some bleakness.

                                Waiting

A square, squat room (a cellar on promotion),
   Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight;
   Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tin-ware;
   Scissors and lint and apothecary's jars.

Here, on a bench a skeleton would writhe from,
   Angry and sore, I wait to be admitted:
   Wait till my heart is lead upon my stomach,
   While at their ease two dressers do their chores.

One has a probe -- it feels to me a crowbar.
   A small boy sniffs and shudders after bluestone.
   A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers.
   Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.

W. E. Henley, A Book of Verses (1888).

Henley closed the sequence with "Discharged."  This is the final stanza of the poem:

Free . . . !
Dizzy, hysterical, faint,
I sit, and the carriage rolls on with me
Into the wonderful world.

           Kenneth Rowntree, "View Through an Open Window" (1944)

Life Explained, Part Six: "He Beholds The Sordid Assemblage Just As It Is"

A year prior to providing an Explanation of Life in "Madam Life's a piece in bloom" (which appears in my post for July 18, 2010), William Ernest Henley offered a less scandalous Explanation involving a Child, a Nurse, and a Fair.  The poem is untitled.  Henley dedicated it to his friend Robert Louis Stevenson.  Alas, the figure of Death again makes an appearance, but in a different guise.

                             Stanley Spencer, "The Roundabout" (1923)

A Child,
Curious and innocent,
Slips from his Nurse, and rejoicing
Loses himself in the Fair.

Thro' the jostle and din
Wandering, he revels,
Dreaming, desiring, possessing;
Till, of a sudden
Tired and afraid, he beholds
The sordid assemblage
Just as it is; and he runs
With a sob to his Nurse
(Lighting at last on him),
And in her motherly bosom
Cries him to sleep.

Thus thro' the World,
Seeing and feeling and knowing,
Goes Man: till at last,
Tired of experience, he turns
To the friendly and comforting breast
Of the old nurse, Death.

The Works of W. E. Henley, Poems: Volume I (1908).  The poem was written in 1876.

                                                       Stanley Spencer
                             "Helter Skelter, Hampstead Heath" (1937)

Life Explained, Part One: "Madam Life's A Piece In Bloom"

As I get older, I find that my attention span is getting shorter.  This may explain why I find myself drawn to poems that explain Life in a few brief lines.  I am not talking about Paradise Lost (or Regained, for that matter), The Faerie Queene, The Prelude, or Four Quartets.  No, I am in search of a distillation of Life in, say, twenty lines or less.  Humor is welcome.  As is practical advice on how to live (and die).

Which brings us to William Ernest Henley (1849-1903).  Henley is best known for "Invictus," that uplifting Victorian paean to self-sufficient selfhood:  "My head is bloody, but unbowed"; "I am the master of my fate:/I am the captain of my soul," etcetera.  But there is more to Henley than "Invictus."  To prove that this is so, I give you the following (untitled) poem explaining Life in sixteen lines:

Madam Life's a piece in bloom
   Death goes dogging everywhere:
She's the tenant of the room,
   He's the ruffian on the stair.

You shall see her as a friend,
   You shall bilk him once and twice;
But he'll trap you in the end,
   And he'll stick you for her price.

With his kneebones at your chest,
   And his knuckles in your throat,
You would reason -- plead -- protest!
   Clutching at her petticoat;

But she's heard it all before,
   Well she knows you've had your fun,
Gingerly she gains the door,
   And your little job is done.

W. E. Henley, The Works of W. E. Henley, Volume I: Poems (1908).  "Invictus" was written in 1875.  "Madam Life's a piece in bloom" was written in 1877.

               William Hogarth, A Rake's Progress: The Tavern (1735)