These two Victorian poems reflecting on death could hardly be more different. In the first, the poet imagines his passing as a moment of fulfilment and calm release as a late lark sings in his heart. The second is a vision of carpe diem in its starkest and nastiest form: life is a prostitute at the transient height of her attraction, and death is her violent pimp, lurking on the stairs to take the money. It is taken for granted that readers will recognise the sordid brothel setting, a reminder that many Victorian gentlemen were not as prudish outside the drawing room as they were in it.
Remarkably, both are the work of one man, William Ernest Henley (1849 – 1902), best known for his poem “Invictus” (out of the night that covers me/ black as the pit from pole to pole/ I thank whatever gods may be/ for my unconquerable soul”). Henley, a poet, critic and literary journalist, had a painful life because of a tubercular complaint that affected his bones and led to the amputation of a leg. He was a sometime friend of J M Barrie and Robert Louis Stevenson: Henley’s Wikipedia biography quotes a letter to him from Stevenson telling him that he was part of the inspiration for Long John Silver in “Treasure Island”.
See the illustrated blog post here.
