Poems (Henley)/Envoy

by William Ernest Henley

ENVOY To Charles Baxter

Do you rememberThat afternoon—that Sunday afternoon!—When, as the kirks were ringing in,And the grey city teemedWith Sabbath feelings and aspects,Lewis—our Lewis then,Now the whole world's—and you,Young, yet in shape most like an elder, came,Laden with Balzacs(Big, yellow books, quite impudently French),The first of many timesTo that transformed back-kitchen where I laySo long, so many centuries—Or years is it!—ago?

Dear Charles, since thenWe have been friends, Lewis and you and I,(How good it sounds, 'Lewis and you and I!'):Such friends, I like to think, That in us three, Lewis and me and you,Is something of that gallant dreamWhich old Dumas—the generous, the humane,The seven-and-seventy times to be forgiven!—Dreamed for a blessing to the race,The immortal Musketeers.

Our Athos rests—the wise, the kind,The liberal and august, his fault atoned,Rests in the crowded yardThere at the west of Princes Street. We three—You, I, and Lewis!—still afoot,Are still together, and our lives,In chime so long, may keep(God bless the thought!)Unjangled till the end.W. E. H.

Chiswick, March 1888