Transcribed from the 1907 David Nutt edition by DiarmuidPigott with some additional material and proofing ,

POEMS

By

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

The summer’s flower is to the summersweet,
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

Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty

p. vTO MYWIFE

Take, dear, my little sheaf ofsongs,
   For, old or new,
All that is good in them belongs
   Only to you;

And, singing as when all wasyoung,
   They will recall
Those others, lived but left unsung—
   The bent of all.

W. E. H

April 1888
      September 1897.

p.viiADVERTISEMENT

My friend and publisher, Mr. Alfred Nutt,asks me to introduce this re-issue of old work in a newshape.  At his request, then, I have tosay that nearly all the numbers contained in the present volumeare reprinted from ‘A Book of Verses’(1888) and ‘London Voluntaries’(1892–3).  From the first of these I have removedsome copies of verse which seemed to