Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)

From In Hospital: ‘The Chief’

HIS brow spreads large and placid, and his eye

Is deep and bright, with steady looks that still.

Soft lines of tranquil thought his face fulfill—

His face at once benign and proud and shy.

If envy scout, if ignorance deny,

His faultless patience, his unyielding will,

Beautiful gentleness and splendid skill,

Innumerable gratitudes reply.

His wise, rare smile is sweet with certainties,

And seems in all his patients to compel

Such love and faith as failure cannot quell.

We hold him for another Herakles,

Battling with custom, prejudice, disease,

As once the son of Zeus with Death and Hell.