Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Here, where the world is quiet;

  Here, where all trouble seems

  Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot

  In doubtful dreams of dreams;

  I watch the green field growing

  For reaping folk and sowing,

  For harvest-time and mowing,

  A sleepy world of streams.

  I am tired of tears and laughter,

  And men that laugh and weep;

  Of what may come hereafter

  For men that sow to reap:

  I am weary of days and hours,

  Blown buds of barren flowers,

  Desires and dreams and powers

  And everything but sleep.

  Here life has death for neighbour,

  And far from eye or ear

  Wan waves and wet winds labour,

  Weak ships and spirits steer;

  They drive adrift, and whither

  They wot not who make thither;

  But no such winds blow hither,

  And no such things grow here.

  No growth of moor or coppice,

  No heather-flower or vine,

  But bloomless buds of poppies,

  Green grapes of Proserpine,

  Pale beds of blowing rushes

  Where no leaf blooms or blushes

  Save this whereout she crushes

  For dead men deadly wine.

  Pale, without name or number,

  In fruitless fields of corn,

  They bow themselves and slumber

  All night till light is born;

  And like a soul belated,

  In hell and heaven unmated,

  By cloud and mist abated

  Comes out of darkness morn.

  Though one were strong as seven,

  He too with death shall dwell,

  Nor wake with wings in heaven,

  Nor weep for pains in hell;

  Though one were fair as roses,

  His beauty clouds and closes;

  And well though love reposes,

  In the end it is not well.

  Pale, beyond porch and portal,

  Crowned with calm leaves, she stands

  Who gathers all things mortal

  With cold immortal hands;

  Her languid lips are sweeter

  Than love’s who fears to greet her

  To men that mix and meet her

  From many times and lands.

  She waits for each and other,

  She waits for all men born;

  Forgets the earth her mother,

  The life of fruits and corn;

  And spring and seed and swallow

  Take wing for her and follow

  Where summer song rings hollow

  And flowers are put to scorn.

  There go the loves that wither,

  The old loves with wearier wings;

  And all dead years draw thither,

  And all disastrous things;

  Dead dreams of days forsaken,

  Blind buds that snows have shaken,

  Wild leaves that winds have taken,

  Red strays of ruined springs.

  We are not sure of sorrow,

  And joy was never sure;

  To-day will die to-morrow;

  Time stoops to no man’s lure;

  And love, grown faint and fretful,

  With lips but half regretful

  Sighs, and with eyes forgetful

  Weeps that no loves endure.

  From too much love of living,

  From hope and fear set free,

  We thank with brief thanksgiving

  Whatever gods may be

  That no life lives for ever;

  That dead men rise up never;

  That even the weariest river

  Winds somewhere safe to sea.

  Then star nor sun shall waken,

  Nor any change of light:

  Nor sound of waters shaken,

  Nor any sound or sight:

  Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,

  Nor days nor things diurnal;

  Only the sleep eternal

  In an eternal night.

  HESPERIA

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

  Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy,

  As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,

  Blows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy,

  Blows from the capes of the past oversea to the bays of the present,

  Filled as with shadow of sound with the pulse of invisible feet,

  Far out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant,

  Is it thither the wind’s wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet?

  For thee, in the stream of the deep tide-wind blowing in with the water,

  Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west,

  Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter

  Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.

  Out of the distance of dreams, as a dream that abides after slumber,

  Strayed from the fugitive flock of the night, when the moon overhead

  Wanes in the wan waste heights of the heaven, and stars without number

  Die without sound, and are spent like lamps that are burnt by the dead,

  Comes back to me, stays by me, lulls me with touch of forgotten caresses,

  One warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures;

  The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind ofthy tresses,

  And all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures.

  But thy bosom is warm for my face and profound as a manifold flower,

  Thy silence as music, thy voice as an odour that fades in a flame;

  Not a dream, not a dream is the kiss of thy mouth, and the bountifulhour

  That makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were itshame.

  Thine eyes that are quiet, thine hands that are tender, thy lips thatare loving,

  Comfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of a moon like a dream;

  And my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly toward thee, andmoving

  As the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream,

  Fair as a rose is on earth, as a rose under water in prison,

  That stretches and swings to the slow passionate pulse of the sea,

  Closed up from the air and the sun, but alive, as a ghost rearisen,

  Pale as the love that revives as a ghost rearisen in me.

  From the bountiful infinite west, from the happy memorial places

  Full of the stately repose and the lordly delight of the dead,

  Where the fortunate islands are lit with the light of ineffable faces,

  And the sound of a sea without wind is about them, and sunset isred,

  Come back to redeem and release me from love that recalls andrepresses,

  That cleaves to my flesh as a flame, till the serpent has eaten hisfill;

  From the bitter delights of the dark, and the feverish, the furtivecaresses

  That murder the youth in a man or ever his heart have its will.

  Thy lips cannot laugh and thine eyes cannot weep; thou art pale as arose is,

  Paler and sweeter than leaves that cover the blush of the bud;

  And the heart of the flower is compassion, and pity the core itencloses,

  Pity, not love, that is born of the breath and decays with theblood.

  As the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises herbosom,

  So love wounds as we grasp it, and blackens and burns as a flame;

  I have loved overmuch in my life; when the live bud bursts with theblossom,

  Bitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame.

  As a heart that its anguish divides is the green bud clove
n asunder;

  As the blood of a man self-slain is the flush of the leaves thatallure;

  And the perfume as poison and wine to the brain, a delight and awonder;

  And the thorns are too sharp for a boy, too slight for a man, toendure.

  Too soon did I love it, and lost love’s rose; and I cared not forglory’s:

  Only the blossoms of sleep and of pleasure were mixed in my hair.

  Was it myrtle or poppy thy garland was woven with, O my Dolores?

  Was it pallor of slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in theefair?

  For desire is a respite from love, and the flesh not the heart is herfuel;

  She was sweet to me once, who am fled and escaped from the rage ofher reign;

  Who behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growingcruel,

  And flushed as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady ofPain.

  Low down where the thicket is thicker with thorns than with leaves inthe summer,

  In the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that Iknew;

  And the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouthsovercome her,

  And her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert withdew.

  With the thirst and the hunger of lust though her beautiful lips be sobitter,

  With the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden andsmile;

  And her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashesglitter,

  And she laughs with a savour of blood in her face, and a savour ofguile.

  She laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows hither andhisses,

  As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap;

  Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses,

  To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep.

  Ah daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison,

  Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly;

  Let us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moonunarisen,

  Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die.

  They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there isnone that hath ridden,

  None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride;

  By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that ishidden,

  Where life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide;

  By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter andsterile,

  By the thundering reef and the low sea-wall and the channel ofyears,

  Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure andperil,

  Labour and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears;

  And the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrowasunder,

  And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses ofgrass,

  Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder,

  Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass;

  Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as amaiden,

  Stung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where wepast;

  And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden,

  As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah love, shall we win at thelast?

  LOVE AT SEA

  We are in love’s land to-day;

  Where shall we go?

  Love, shall we start or stay,

  Or sail or row?

  There’s many a wind and way,

  And never a May but May;

  We are in love’s hand to-day;

  Where shall we go?

  Our landwind is the breath

  Of sorrows kissed to death

  And joys that were;

  Our ballast is a rose;

  Our way lies where God knows

  And love knows where.

  We are in love’s hand to-day —

  Our seamen are fledged Loves,

  Our masts are bills of doves,

  Our decks fine gold;

  Our ropes are dead maids’ hair,

  Our stores are love-shafts fair

  And manifold.

  We are in love’s land to-day —

  Where shall we land you, sweet?

  On fields of strange men’s feet,

  Or fields near home?

  Or where the fire-flowers blow,

  Or where the flowers of snow

  Or flowers of foam?

  We are in love’s hand to-day —

  Land me, she says, where love

  Shows but one shaft, one dove,

  One heart, one hand.

  — A shore like that, my dear,

  Lies where no man will steer,

  No maiden land.

  Imitated from Théophile Gautier.

  APRIL

  FROM THE FRENCH OF THE VIDAME DE CHARTRES

  12 — ?

  When the fields catch flower

  And the underwood is green,

  And from bower unto bower

  The songs of the birds begin,

  I sing with sighing between.

  When I laugh and sing,

  I am heavy at heart for my sin;

  I am sad in the spring

  For my love that I shall not win,

  For a foolish thing.

  This profit I have of my woe,

  That I know, as I sing,

  I know he will needs have it so

  Who is master and king,

  Who is lord of the spirit of spring.

  I will serve her and will not spare

  Till her pity awake

  Who is good, who is pure, who is fair,

  Even her for whose sake

  Love hath ta’en me and slain unaware.

  O my lord, O Love,

  I have laid my life at thy feet;

  Have thy will thereof,

  Do as it please thee with it,

  For what shall please thee is sweet.

  I am come unto thee

  To do thee service, O Love;

  Yet cannot I see

  Thou wilt take any pity thereof,

  Any mercy on me.

  But the grace I have long time sought

  Comes never in sight,

  If in her it abideth not,

  Through thy mercy and might,

  Whose heart is the world’s delight.

  Thou hast sworn without fail I shall die,

  For my heart is set

  On what hurts me, I wot not why,

  But cannot forget

  What I love, what I sing for and sigh.

  She is worthy of praise,

  For this grief of her giving is worth

  All the joy of my days

  That lie between death’s day and birth,

  All the lordship of things upon earth.

  Nay, what have I said?

  I would not be glad if I could;

  My dream and my dread

  Are of her, and for her sake I would

  That my life were fled.

  Lo, sweet, if I durst not pray to you,

  Then were I dead;

  If I sang not a little to say to you,

  (Could it be said)

  O my love, how my heart would be fed;

  Ah sweet who hast hold of my heart,

  For thy love’s sake I live,

  Do but tell me, ere either depart,

  What a lover may give

  For a woman so fair as thou art.

  The lovers that disbelieve,

  False rumours shall grieve

  And evil-speaking shall part.

  BEFORE PARTING

  A month or twain to live on honeycomb

  Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time,

  Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,

&nbs
p; And that strong purple under juice and foam

  Where the wine’s heart has burst;

  Nor feel the latter kisses like the first.

  Once yet, this poor one time; I will not pray

  Even to change the bitterness of it,

  The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,

  To make your tears fall where your soft hair lay

  All blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise

  Over my face and eyes.

  And yet who knows what end the scythèd wheat

  Makes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red?

  These were not sown, these are not harvested,

  They grow a month and are cast under feet

  And none has care thereof,

  As none has care of a divided love.

  I know each shadow of your lips by rote,

  Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows;

  The fashion of fair temples tremulous

  With tender blood, and colour of your throat;

  I know not how love is gone out of this,

  Seeing that all was his.

  Love’s likeness there endures upon all these:

  But out of these one shall not gather love.

  Day hath not strength nor the night shade enough

  To make love whole and fill his lips with ease,

  As some bee-builded cell

  Feels at filled lips the heavy honey swell.

  I know not how this last month leaves your hair

  Less full of purple colour and hid spice,

  And that luxurious trouble of closed eyes

  Is mixed with meaner shadow and waste care;

  And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yet

  Worth patience to regret.

  THE SUNDEW

  A little marsh-plant, yellow green,

  And pricked at lip with tender red.

  Tread close, and either way you tread

  Some faint black water jets between

  Lest you should bruise the curious head.

  A live thing maybe; who shall know?

  The summer knows and suffers it;

  For the cool moss is thick and sweet

  Each side, and saves the blossom so

  That it lives out the long June heat.

  The deep scent of the heather burns