Poems by Algernon Charles Swinburne

I.

April made me: winter laid me here away asleep.

Sea to sea that clasps and fosters England, uttering ever-more

TO CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

Like a queen enchanted who may not laugh or weep,

The burden of fair women. Vain delight,

Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,

I hid my heart in a nest of roses,

I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers,

High beyond the granite portal arched across

There was a graven image of Desire

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,

Praise of the knights of old

What will it please you, my darling, hereafter to be?

All the bells of heaven may ring,

No sweeter thing than children’s ways and wiles,

How low soe’er men rank us,

Faith is the spirit that makes man's body and blood

Three damsels in the queen’s chamber,

I

O strong Republic of the nobler years

‘La maison sans enfants!’ - VICTOR HUGO.

I.

Ferdinand II entered Malebolge May 22nd, 1859.

The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise,

I.

A bell tolls on in my heart

All Afric, winged with death and fire,

Heart's ease or pansy, pleasure or thought,

In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,

1746

1716

I.

Low lies the mere beneath the moorside, still

Sick of self-love, Malvolio, like an owl

Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.

FIRST ANTIPHONE.

Fair of face, full of pride,

We mix from many lands,

If love were what the rose is,

The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word

East and north a waste of waters, south and west

Along these low pleached lanes, on such a day,

Stately stand the sunflowers, glowing down the garden-side,

Here begins the sea that ends not till the world’s end. Where we stand,

Rains have left the sea-banks ill to climb:

Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down

The sea is awake, and the sound of the song of the joy of her waking is rolled

Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May,

If the rose of all flowers be the rarest

An age too great for thought of ours to scan,

Christina Rossetti died December 29, 1894

To Joseph Mazzini

To Victor Hugo

Wind and sea and cloud and cloud-forsaking

I.

Summer, and noon, and a splendour of silence, felt,

To a friend leaving England for a year's residence in Australia.

Some die singing, and some die swinging,

The rose to the wind has yielded: all its leaves

Babe, if rhyme be none

Death, I would plead against thy wrong,

Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar,

I

Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses,

Sea beyond sea, sand after sweep of sand,

Push hard across the sand,

The heart of the rulers is sick, and the high-priest covers his head:

Inscribed With All Devotion and Reverence To: JOSEPH MAZZINI

If that be yet a living soul which here

Somno mollior unda

1

Men, born of the land that for ages

I.

I

Ps. xciv. 8.

Lord of days and nights that hear thy word of wintry warning,

If blood throbs yet in this that was thy face,

JANUARY

Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear,

I.

For the seven times seventh time love would renew the delight without end or alloy

The four boards of the coffin lid

I.

To Joseph Mazzini.

‘Si quis piorum Manibus locus.’

France, cloven in twain by fire of hell and hate,

In the beginning God made thee

I

I

Written on the news of the death of Lord Leighton

In the greenest growth of the Maytime,

Many waters cannot quench love,

My life is bitter with thy love; thine eyes

Till death have broken

Strong as death, and cruel as the grave,

If wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song,

Et Judas m'a dit: Traître!

From the french of the Vidame de Chartres.

I

After reading Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia in the garden of an old English manor house

England, elect of time,

I

Men of Eleusis, ye that with long staves

'Farewell and adieu' was the burden prevailing

Str. I.

La plus douce des voix qui vibraient sous le ciel

There were four apples on the bough,

I.

The year lies fallen and faded

IN MEMORY OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

Baby-bird, baby-bird,

I.

Still the sovereign trees

Here, down between the dusty trees,

Sweet life, if life were stronger,

A month or twain to live on honeycomb

Love's twilight wanes in heaven above,

(VERSES WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE.)

Blest in death and life beyond man's guessing

Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother,

I

Strophe 1.

Not all disgraced, in that Italian town,

To the Signora Cairoli

A fire of fierce and laughing light

To Walter Theodore Watts.

Summer's face was rosiest, skies and woods were mellow,

If we dream that desire of the distance above us

"His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract"

Death, winged with fire of hate from deathless hell

The blind king hides his weeping eyeless head,

But now life's face beholden

Love, what ailed thee to leave life that was made lovely, we thought, with love?

I

Clear the way, my lords and lackeys! you have had your day.

"Her beauty might outface the jealous hours,

Child, when they say that others

Reconciled by death's mild hand, that giving

O heart of hearts, the chalice of love’s fire,

(To a tune of Blake’s)

What needs our Cromwell stone or bronze to say

Dead love, by treason slain, lies stark,

Death and birth should dwell not near together:

The sea that is life everlasting

TO CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI

TO MY BEST FRIEND

The sea of the years that endure not

The years are many, the changes more,

I.

A sea-mew on a sea-king's wrist alighting,

Take, since you bade it should bear,

Take, since you bade it should bear,

(B.C. 280)

Chief in thy generation born of men

Unreconciled by life's fleet years, that fled

(NOTRE-DAME DES SEPT DOULEURS.)

Ad generem Cereris sine cæde et vulnere pauci

Sunset smiles on sunrise: east and west are one,

I.

1869-1891

I

Fly, white butterflies, out to sea,

As a vesture shalt thou change them, said the prophet,

Between the wave-ridge and the strand

ERECHTHEUS.

I.

Sweet for a little even to fear, and sweet,

For the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Foundation of the College

I.

A year ago red wrath and keen despair

To Victor Hugo

In Memory of Mrs. Thellusson.

Over two shadowless waters, adrift as a pinnace in peril,

Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant.

Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?

Upon the borderlands of being,

A little way, more soft and sweet

Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover

Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided,

Steadfast as sorrow, fiery sad, and sweet

Storm and shame and fraud and darkness fill the nations full with night:

I. Winter in Northumberland

O love! what shall be said of thee?

In the outer world that was before this earth,

Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,

Attempted in English verse after the original metre.

Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing

All the golden air is full of balm and bloom

I

To Isabel Swinburne.

In the month of the long decline of roses

I.

When grace is given us ever to behold

I am that which began;

Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is,

Beneath the shadow of dawn’s aerial cope,

(During the Session in Rome of the Ecumenical Council)

(AFTER THE PROCLAMATION IN ROME OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH)

There is an end of joy and sorrow;

Baby, see the flowers!

Through the low grey archway children's feet that pass

TO THEODORE WATTS

I.

Beloved above all nations, land adored,

The wider world of men that is not ours

Yet again another, ere his crowning year,

Farewell: how should not such as thou fare well,

Back to the flower-town, side by side,

Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night?

Abreast and ahead of the sea is a crag's front cloven asunder

‘Vidistis ipso rapere de rogo cœnam.’

I

(PROVENCAL BURDEN.)

"Return," we dare not as we fain

I

Sark, fairer than aught in the world that the lit skies cover,

Ave Caesar Imperator, moriturum te saluto.

Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,

Now who will speak, and lie not,

I

The sun was heavy; no more shade at all

Bill, I feel far from quite right if not further: already the pill

Malâ soluta navis exit alite.

Lors dit en plourant; Hélas trop malheureux homme et mauldict pescheur, oncques ne verrai-je clémence et miséricorde de Dieu. Ores m’en irai-je d’icy et me cacherai dedans le mont Horsel, en requérant de faveur et d’amoureuse merci ma doulce dame Vén

From the depths of the waters that lighten and darken

Whatever a man of the sons of men

He should have followed who goes forth before us,

To Philip Bourke Marston

Last high star of the years whose thunder

Italia, mother of the souls of men,

To E. H.

Come close and see her and hearken. This is she.

I.

I.

Lying asleep between the strokes of night

Imitated from Théophile Gautier

Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided,

Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover

Écrasez l'infâme.

Under green apple-boughs

I

Mad March, with the wind in his wings wide-spread,

Citoyen, lui dit Enjoiras, ma mère, c’est la République.

Mother of man’s time-travelling generations,

(BRETON.)

A new year gleams on us, tearful

A life more bright than the sun's face, bowed

At the time when the stars are grey,

Est-ce qu'il n'est pas temps que la foudre se prouve,

1

Put in the sickles and reap;

Because there is but one truth;

Alas my brother! the cry of the mourners of old

I

Far off is the sea, and the land is afar:

Sweet heart, that no taint of the throne or the stage

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,

New Year, be good to England. Bid her name

I

I.

It does not hurt. She looked along the knife

Between our eastward and our westward sea

I.

STR. 1

To: VICTOR HUGO

When the might of the summer

I

TRANSLATED BY D. C. ROSSETTI FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLON

I.

CELEBRATED UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF VICTOR HUGO.

Between the moondawn and the sundown here

Northumberland, so proud and sad to-day,

Kind, wise, and true as truth's own heart,

Night or light is it now, wherein

A light of blameless laughter, fancy-bred,

Fourscore and five times has the gradual year

Two souls diverse out of our human sight

A faint sea without wind or sun;

O son of man, by lying tongues adored,

To Theodore Watts

I.

A Lyrical Idyl

"Popule mi, quid tibi feci?"

I.

I.

In a vision Liberty stood

Iscariot, thou grey-grown beast of blood,

Hippolytus; Phædra; Chorus of Trœzenian Women

I.

Far beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises

The sea gives her shells to the shingle,

Between the green bud and the red

Swift music made of passion's changeful power,

Love dark as death and fierce as fire on wing

Light, as when dawn takes wing and smites the sea,

The golden bells of fairyland, that ring

The mightiest choir of song that memory hears

When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above

Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire

The wind that brings us from the springtide south

Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south,

Am i not he that hath made thee and begotten thee,

I.

I.

The wave that breaks against a forward stroke

Take hands and part with laughter;

Kissing her hair I sat against her feet,

These many years since we began to be,

I

All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,

If you loved me ever so little,

I saw my soul at rest upon a day

I.

Inside this northern summer’s fold

I.

To H.W.M.

Sleep, when a soul that her own clouds cover

Sweet mother, in a minute’s span

Song for the Centenary of Walter Savage Landor

That nose is out of drawing. With a gasp,

Ye too, dim watchfires of some darkling hour,

More yet and more, and yet we mark not all:

Mother whose womb brought forth our man of men,

An hour ere sudden sunset fired the west,

Broad-based, broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform,

Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire,

Our mother, which wast twice, as history saith,

High priest of Homer, not elect in vain,

The dusk of day’s decline was hard on dark

Day was a full-blown flower in heaven, alive

Hew hard the marble from the mountain’s heart

The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn

Thunder: the flesh quails, and the soul bows down.

Clouds here and there arisen an hour past noon

I.

Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben,

Out of the depths of darkling life where sin

Tom, if they loved thee best who called thee Tom.

A wild moon riding high from cloud to cloud,

Not if men's tongues and angels' all in one

Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever,

Rose-red lilies that bloom on the banner;

It hath been seen and yet it shall be seen

When the game began between them for a jest,

Be glad in heaven above all souls insphered,

The sundawn fills the land

If the wind and the sunlight of April and August had mingled the past and hereafter

All the west, whereon the sunset sealed the dead year's glorious grave

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,

At the chill high tide of the night,

Upon the flowery forefront of the year,

Let there be light, said Time: and England heard:

I

I

Lay the corpse out on the altar; bid the elect

The sea swings owre the slants of sand,

In Memory of Theodore de Banville

(FINNISH.)

"The wind wears roun', the day wears doun,

There were twa brethren fell on strife;

O daughter of pride, wasted with misery,

Sound of trumpets blowing down the merriest winds of morn,

'Horatio Nelson - Honor est a Nilo'

Not for less love, all glorious France, to thee,

I

Men, whose fathers braved the world in arms against our isles in union,

There is no woman living who draws breath

I.

1

On the Busts of Nero in the Uffizj.

1

Dante, sole standing on the heavenward height,

Peace and war are one in proof of England's deathless praise.

On the refusal by the French Senate of the plenary amnesty demanded by Victor Hugo, in his speech of July 3rd, for the surviving exiles of the Commune.)

Sea, and bright wind, and heaven of ardent air,

Here, where the world is quiet;

Is it so, that the sword is broken,

Fourscore years and seven

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is:

I

We were ten maidens in the green corn,

The sun is lord and god, sublime, serene,

eipate toi basilei, xamai pese daidalos aula.

Nothing is better, I well think,

CHORUS

Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root,

Greene, garlanded with February's few flowers

KING DAVID.

Virtutem videant intabescantque relicta.

I

Ask nothing more of me, sweet;

Inscribed to my Mother

The coming of the hawthorn brings on earth

IDYL CCCLXVI

Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass

Said a poet to a woodlouse, "Thou art certainly my brother;

Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire

Shall England consummate the crime

Return, they cry, ere yet your day

Gratefully inscribed to Dr. A.B. Grosart.

A roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere,

If childhood were not in the world,

1

This fell when Christmas lights were done,

Maiden most beautiful, mother most bountiful, lady of lands,

I.

A little marsh-plant, yellow green,

Dedication

Patience, long sick to death, is dead. Too long

Before our lives divide for ever,

Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate,

I.

I will that if I say a heavy thing

There's mony a man loves land and life,

I

The wind's way in the deep sky's hollow

O daughter, why do ye laugh and weep,

O weary fa' the east wind,

"O where will ye gang to and where will ye sleep,

There were four loves that one by one,

From the depths of the green garden-closes

The sky and sea glared hard and bright and blank:

Again the same strange might of eyes, that saw

Out of the dark pure twilight, where the stream

Three weeks since there was no such rose in being;

I

Watching here alone by the fire whereat last year

I.

PART I

Love, whose light thrills heaven and earth,

I

When I had wings, my brother,

My brother, my Valerius, dearest head

Child of two strong nations, heir

Beyond the north wind lay the land of old

On the Eightieth Anniversary of his Birth,

I.

(ON HIS TRANSLATION OF "THE ARABIAN NIGHTS")

I NOW DEDICATE, WITH EQUAL AFFECTION, REVERENCE, AND REGRET, A POEM

In the fair days when God

Send but a song oversea for us,

The larks are loud above our leagues of whin

Sea, that art ours as we are thine, whose name

Love, that is first and last of all things made,

About the middle music of the spring

Out of the night arose the second day,

“‘As the dawn loves the sunlight I love thee;’

Spring watched her last moon burn and fade with May

Fate, that was born ere spirit and flesh were made,

But that same night in Cornwall oversea

A little time, O Love, a little light,

But all that year in Brittany forlorn,

Enough of ease, O Love, enough of light,

Affectionately Inscribed to W.M.R. and L.R.

I.

The days of a man are threescore years and ten.

Sea and land are fairer now, nor aught is all the same,

‘As a matter of fact, no man living, or who ever lived, not Cæsar or Pericles, not Shakespeare or Michael Angelo, could confer honour more than he took on entering the House of Lords.’

What shall be done for sorrow

Looking on a page where stood

Not if men’s tongues and angels’ all in one

Outside the garden