a blast of the envy of God.
MELEAGER.
Unto each man his fate;
Unto each as he saith
In whose fingers the weight
Of the world is as breath;
Yet I would that in clamour of battle mine hands
had laid hold upon death.
CHORUS.
Not with cleaving of shields
And their clash in thine ear,
When the lord of fought fields
Breaketh spearshaft from spear,
Thou art broken, our lord, thou art broken;
with travail and labour and fear,
MELEAGER.
Would God he had found me
Beneath fresh boughs
Would God he had bound me
Unawares in mine house,
With light in mine eyes, and songs in my lips,
and a crown on my brows!
CHORUS.
Whence art thou sent from us?
Whither thy goal?
How art thou rent from us,
Thou that wert whole,
As with severing of eyelids and eyes,
as with sundering of body and soul!
MELEAGER.
My heart is within me
As an ash in the fire;
Whosoever hath seen me,
Without lute, without lyre,
Shall sing of me grievous things,
even things that were ill to desire.
CHORUS.
Who shall raise thee
From the house of the dead?
Or what man praise thee
That thy praise may be said?
Alas thy beauty! alas thy body! alas thine head!
MELEAGER.
But thou, O mother,
The dreamer of dreams,
Wilt thou bring forth another
To feel the sun’s beams
When I move among shadows a shadow,
and wail by impassable streams?
OENEUS.
What thing wilt thou leave me
Now this thing is done?
A man wilt thou give me,
A son for my son,
For the light of mine eyes, the desire of my life,
the desirable one?
CHORUS.
Thou wert glad above others,
Yea, fair beyond word,
Thou wert glad among mothers;
For each man that heard
Of thee, praise there was added unto thee, as wings
to the feet of a bird.
OENEUS.
Who shall give back
Thy face of old years,
With travail made black,
Grown grey among fears,
Mother of sorrow, mother of cursing, mother of tears?
MELEAGER.
Though thou art as fire
Fed with fuel in vain,
My delight, my desire,
Is more chaste than the rain,
More pure than the dewfall, more holy than stars
are that live without stain.
ATALANTA.
I would that as water
My life’s blood had thawn,
Or as winter’s wan daughter
Leaves lowland and lawn
Spring-stricken, or ever mine eyes had beheld thee
made dark in thy dawn.
CHORUS.
When thou dravest the men
Of the chosen of Thrace,
None turned him again
Nor endured he thy face
Clothed round with the blush of the battle,
with light from a terrible place.
OENEUS.
Thou shouldst die as he dies
For whom none sheddeth tears;
Filling thine eyes
And fulfilling thine ears
With the brilliance of battle, the bloom and the beauty,
the splendour of spears.
CHORUS.
In the ears of the world
It is sung, it is told,
And the light thereof hurled
And the noise thereof rolled
From the Acroceraunian snow to the ford
of the fleece of gold.
MELEAGER.
Would God ye could carry me
Forth of all these;
Heap sand and bury me
By the Chersonese
Where the thundering Bosphorus answers
the thunder of Pontic seas.
OENEUS.
Dost thou mock at our praise
And the singing begun
And the men of strange days
Praising my son
In the folds of the hills of home,
high places of Calydon?
MELEAGER.
For the dead man no home is;
Ah, better to be
What the flower of the foam is
In fields of the sea,
That the sea-waves might be as my raiment,
the gulf-stream a garment for me.
CHORUS.
Who shall seek thee and bring
And restore thee thy day,
When the dove dipt her wing
And the oars won their way
Where the narrowing Symplegades whitened the straits
of Propontis with spray?
MELEAGER.
Will ye crown me my tomb
Or exalt me my name,
Now my spirits consume,
Now my flesh is a flame?
Let the sea slake it once, and men speak of me sleeping
to praise me or shame,
CHORUS.
Turn back now, turn thee,
As who turns him to wake;
Though the life in thee burn thee,
Couldst thou bathe it and slake
Where the sea-ridge of Helle hangs heavier,
and east upon west waters break?
MELEAGER.
Would the winds blow me back
Or the waves hurl me home?
Ah, to touch in the track
Where the pine learnt to roam
Cold girdles and crowns of the sea-gods,
cool blossoms of water and foam!
CHORUS.
The gods may release
That they made fast;
Thy soul shall have ease
In thy limbs at the last;
But what shall they give thee for life,
sweet life that is overpast?
MELEAGER.
Not the life of men’s veins,
Not of flesh that conceives;
But the grace that remains,
The fair beauty that cleaves
To the life of the rains in the grasses,
the life of the dews on the leaves.
CHORUS.
Thou wert helmsman and chief,
Wilt thou turn in an hour,
Thy limbs to the leaf,
Thy face to the flower,
Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the gods
who divide and devour?
MELEAGER.
The years are hungry,
They wail all their days;
The gods wax angry
And weary of praise;
And who shall bridle their lips?
and who shall straiten their ways?
CHORUS.
The gods guard over us
With sword and with rod;
Weaving shadow to cover us,
Heaping the sod,
That law may fulfil herself wholly,
to darken man’s face before God.
MELEAGER.
O holy head of Oeneus, lo thy son
Guiltless, yet red from alien guilt, yet foul
With kinship of contaminated lives,
Lo, for their blood I die; and mine own blood
For bloodshedding of mine is mixed therewith,
That death may not discern me from my kin.
Yet with clean heart I die and faultless hand,
Not shamefully; th
ou therefore of thy love
Salute me, and bid fare among the dead
Well, as the dead fare; for the best man dead
Fares sadly; nathless I now faring well
Pass without fear where nothing is to fear
Having thy love about me and thy goodwill,
O father, among dark places and men dead.
OENEUS.
Child, I salute thee with sad heart and tears,
And bid thee comfort, being a perfect man
In fight, and honourable in the house of peace.
The gods give thee fair wage and dues of death,
And me brief days and ways to come at thee.
MELEAGER.
Pray thou thy days be long before thy death,
And full of ease and kingdom; seeing in death
There is no comfort and none aftergrowth,
Nor shall one thence look up and see day’s dawn
Nor light upon the land whither I go.
Live thou and take thy fill of days and die
When thy day comes; and make not much of death
Lest ere thy day thou reap an evil thing.
Thou too, the bitter mother and mother-plague
Of this my weary body — thou too, queen,
The source and end, the sower and the scythe,
The rain that ripens and the drought that slays,
The sand that swallows and the spring that feeds,
To make me and unmake me — thou, I say,
Althaea, since my father’s ploughshare, drawn
Through fatal seedland of a female field,
Furrowed thy body, whence a wheaten ear
Strong from the sun and fragrant from the rains
I sprang and cleft the closure of thy womb,
Mother, I dying with unforgetful tongue
Hail thee as holy and worship thee as just
Who art unjust and unholy; and with my knees
Would worship, but thy fire and subtlety,
Dissundering them, devour me; for these limbs
Are as light dust and crumblings from mine urn
Before the fire has touched them; and my face
As a dead leaf or dead foot’s mark on snow,
And all this body a broken barren tree
That was so strong, and all this flower of life
Disbranched and desecrated miserably,
And minished all that god-like muscle and might
And lesser than a man’s: for all my veins
Fail me, and all mine ashen life burns down.
I would thou hadst let me live; but gods averse,
But fortune, and the fiery feet of change,
And time, these would not, these tread out my life,
These and not thou; me too thou hast loved, and I
Thee; but this death was mixed with all my life,
Mine end with my beginning: and this law,
This only, slays me, and not my mother at all.
And let no brother or sister grieve too sore,
Nor melt their hearts out on me with their tears,
Since extreme love and sorrowing overmuch
Vex the great gods, and overloving men
Slay and are slain for love’s sake; and this house
Shall bear much better children; why should these
Weep? but in patience let them live their lives
And mine pass by forgotten: thou alone,
Mother, thou sole and only, thou not these,
Keep me in mind a little when I die
Because I was thy first-born; let thy soul
Pity me, pity even me gone hence and dead,
Though thou wert wroth, and though thou bear again
Much happier sons, and all men later born
Exceedingly excel me; yet do thou
Forget not, nor think shame; I was thy son.
Time was I did not shame thee, and time was
I thought to live and make thee honourable
With deeds as great as these men’s; but they live,
These, and I die; and what thing should have been
Surely I know not; yet I charge thee, seeing
I am dead already, love me not the less,
Me, O my mother; I charge thee by these gods,
My father’s, and that holier breast of thine,
By these that see me dying, and that which nursed,
Love me not less, thy first-born: though grief come,
Grief only, of me, and of all these great joy,
And shall come always to thee; for thou knowest,
O mother, O breasts that bare me, for ye know,
O sweet head of my mother, sacred eyes,
Ye know my soul albeit I sinned, ye know
Albeit I kneel not neither touch thy knees,
But with my lips I kneel, and with my heart
I fall about thy feet and worship thee.
And ye farewell now, all my friends; and ye,
Kinsmen, much younger and glorious more than I,
Sons of my mother’s sister; and all farewell
That were in Colchis with me, and bare down
The waves and wars that met us: and though times
Change, and though now I be not anything,
Forget not me among you, what I did
In my good time; for even by all those days,
Those days and this, and your own living souls,
And by the light and luck of you that live,
And by this miserable spoil, and me
Dying, I beseech you, let my name not die.
But thou, dear, touch me with thy rose-like hands,
And fasten up mine eyelids with thy mouth,
A bitter kiss; and grasp me with thine arms,
Printing with heavy lips my light waste flesh,
Made light and thin by heavy-handed fate,
And with thine holy maiden eyes drop dew,
Drop tears for dew upon me who am dead,
Me who have loved thee; seeing without sin done
I am gone down to the empty weary house
Where no flesh is nor beauty nor swift eyes
Nor sound of mouth nor might of hands and feet,
But thou, dear, hide my body with thy veil,
And with thy raiment cover foot and head,
And stretch thyself upon me and touch hands
With hands and lips with lips: be pitiful
As thou art maiden perfect; let no man
Defile me to despise me, saying, This man
Died woman-wise, a woman’s offering, slain
Through female fingers in his woof of life,
Dishonourable; for thou hast honoured me.
And now for God’s sake kiss me once and twice
And let me go; for the night gathers me,
And in the night shall no man gather fruit.
ATALANTA.
Hail thou: but I with heavy face and feet
Turn homeward and am gone out of thine eyes.
CHORUS.
Who shall contend with his lords
Or cross them or do them wrong?
Who shall bind them as with cords?
Who shall tame them as with song?
Who shall smite them as with swords?
For the hands of their kingdom are strong.
POEMS AND BALLADS (FIRST SERIES)
This poetry collection caused a sensation when it was first published in 1866, with the poems written in homage of Sappho of Lesbos, including Anactoria and Sapphics, especially provoking controversy, resulting in the publishers Moxon and Co. transferring the publication rights to John Camden Hotten. In the long poem Anactoria, the ancient Greek poetess Sappho addresses Anactoria in imagery that includes sadomasochism, cannibalism and dystheism – a controversial belief that god is not wholly good, but possibly evil. The collection also indicates the Victorian fascination with themes of the Middle Ages, which were particularly prominent in the work of the Pre-Raphaelites at that time and the popular p
oetry of Tennyson. Poems such as The Leper, Laus Veneris and St. Dorothy evoke an explicitly mediaeval style and tone and construction, while other works such as Hymn to Proserpine and Triumph of Time demonstrate the contemporary interest in classical themes.
Swinburne was decadent in his lifestyle as well as in his verses and rich use of language. He was keen to boast of his many vices and ‘debaucheries’, at one time causing Oscar Wilde to label him as “a braggart in matters of vice, who had done everything he could to convince his fellow citizens of his homosexuality and bestiality without being in the slightest degree a homosexual or a bestialiser.” Nevertheless, Swinburne’s mastery of vocabulary, rhyme and metre were confident and accomplished in this collection, his first great success. Although he has also been at times criticised for his florid style and dubious language choices, occasionally opting for words to fit the rhyme scheme rather than contributing to the meaning of the piece, there was no doubt that with the publication of Poems and Ballads his literary career was launched.
Poems and Ballads was to become one of the most, if not the most, sensationally controversial books of Victorian poetry, offering a disturbing mix of sadomasochism, necrophilia, egalitarianism and blasphemy. Readers were surprised and intrigued by Swinburne’s original poetic voice, which was lyrical and possessed of an unparalleled energy, whilst composed in a large variety of stanza forms and metres. The collection was learned and sophisticated in its outlook, surprisingly ahead of its time in its modern thinking. Poems and Ballads quickly established Swinburne as not only the leading new poet of the day, but an international icon for progressive thinkers. In the late 1860s and 1870s Swinburne’s name came to represent for many a more liberal, less puritanical society.
Swinburne (fourth from left) with his Oxford fellow students, c1857
CONTENTS
A BALLAD OF LIFE
A BALLAD OF DEATH
LAUS VENERIS
PHÆDRA
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 8