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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  That neither is most to blame

  If you’ve forgotten my kisses

  And I’ve forgotten your name.

  HENDECASYLLABICS

  In the month of the long decline of roses

  I, beholding the summer dead before me,

  Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent,

  Gazing eagerly where above the sea-mark

  Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions

  Half divided the eyelids of the sunset;

  Till I heard as it were a noise of waters

  Moving tremulous under feet of angels

  Multitudinous, out of all the heavens;

  Knew the fluttering wind, the fluttered foliage,

  Shaken fitfully, full of sound and shadow;

  And saw, trodden upon by noiseless angels,

  Long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight,

  Sweet sad straits in a soft subsiding channel,

  Blown about by the lips of winds I knew not,

  Winds not born in the north nor any quarter,

  Winds not warm with the south nor any sunshine;

  Heard between them a voice of exultation,

  “Lo, the summer is dead, the sun is faded,

  Even like as a leaf the year is withered,

  All the fruits of the day from all her branches

  Gathered, neither is any left to gather.

  All the flowers are dead, the tender blossoms,

  All are taken away; the season wasted,

  Like an ember among the fallen ashes.

  Now with light of the winter days, with moonlight,

  Light of snow, and the bitter light of hoarfrost,

  We bring flowers that fade not after autumn,

  Pale white chaplets and crowns of latter seasons,

  Fair false leaves (but the summer leaves were falser),

  Woven under the eyes of stars and planets

  When low light was upon the windy reaches

  Where the flower of foam was blown, a lily

  Dropt among the sonorous fruitless furrows

  And green fields of the sea that make no pasture:

  Since the winter begins, the weeping winter,

  All whose flowers are tears, and round his temples

  Iron blossom of frost is bound for ever.”

  SAPPHICS

  All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,

  Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,

  Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron

  Stood and beheld me.

  Then to me so lying awake a vision

  Came without sleep over the seas and touched me,

  Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I too,

  Full of the vision,

  Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,

  Saw the hair unbound and the feet unsandalled

  Shine as fire of sunset on western waters;

  Saw the reluctant

  Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her,

  Looking always, looking with necks reverted,

  Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder

  Shone Mitylene;

  Heard the flying feet of the Loves behind her

  Make a sudden thunder upon the waters,

  As the thunder flung from the strong unclosing

  Wings of a great wind.

  So the goddess fled from her place, with awful

  Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her;

  While behind a clamour of singing women

  Severed the twilight.

  Ah the singing, ah the delight, the passion!

  All the Loves wept, listening; sick with anguish,

  Stood the crowned nine Muses about Apollo;

  Fear was upon them,

  While the tenth sang wonderful things they knew not.

  Ah the tenth, the Lesbian! the nine were silent,

  None endured the sound of her song for weeping;

  Laurel by laurel,

  Faded all their crowns; but about her forehead,

  Round her woven tresses and ashen temples

  White as dead snow, paler than grass in summer,

  Ravaged with kisses,

  Shone a light of fire as a crown for ever.

  Yea, almost the implacable Aphrodite

  Paused, and almost wept; such a song was that song.

  Yea, by her name too

  Called her, saying, “Turn to me, O my Sappho;”

  Yet she turned her face from the Loves, she saw not

  Tears for laughter darken immortal eyelids,

  Heard not about her

  Fearful fitful wings of the doves departing,

  Saw not how the bosom of Aphrodite

  Shook with weeping, saw not her shaken raiment,

  Saw not her hands wrung;

  Saw the Lesbians kissing across their smitten

  Lutes with lips more sweet than the sound of lute-strings,

  Mouth to mouth and hand upon hand, her chosen,

  Fairer than all men;

  Only saw the beautiful lips and fingers,

  Full of songs and kisses and little whispers,

  Full of music; only beheld among them

  Soar, as a bird soars

  Newly fledged, her visible song, a marvel,

  Made of perfect sound and exceeding passion,

  Sweetly shapen, terrible, full of thunders,

  Clothed with the wind’s wings.

  Then rejoiced she, laughing with love, and scattered

  Roses, awful roses of holy blossom;

  Then the Loves thronged sadly with hidden faces

  Round Aphrodite,

  Then the Muses, stricken at heart, were silent;

  Yea, the gods waxed pale; such a song was that song.

  All reluctant, all with a fresh repulsion,

  Fled from before her.

  All withdrew long since, and the land was barren,

  Full of fruitless women and music only.

  Now perchance, when winds are assuaged at sunset,

  Lulled at the dewfall,

  By the grey sea-side, unassuaged, unheard of,

  Unbeloved, unseen in the ebb of twilight,

  Ghosts of outcast women return lamenting,

  Purged not in Lethe,

  Clothed about with flame and with tears, and singing

  Songs that move the heart of the shaken heaven,

  Songs that break the heart of the earth with pity,

  Hearing, to hear them.

  AT ELEUSIS

  Men of Eleusis, ye that with long staves

  Sit in the market-houses, and speak words

  Made sweet with wisdom as the rare wine is

  Thickened with honey; and ye sons of these

  Who in the glad thick streets go up and down

  For pastime or grave traffic or mere chance;

  And all fair women having rings of gold

  On hands or hair; and chiefest over these

  I name you, daughters of this man the king,

  Who dipping deep smooth pitchers of pure brass

  Under the bubbled wells, till each round lip

  Stooped with loose gurgle of waters incoming,

  Found me an old sick woman, lamed and lean,

  Beside a growth of builded olive-boughs

  Whence multiplied thick song of thick-plumed throats —

  Also wet tears filled up my hollow hands

  By reason of my crying into them —

  And pitied me; for as cold water ran

  And washed the pitchers full from lip to lip,

  So washed both eyes full the strong salt of tears.

  And ye put water to my mouth, made sweet

  With brown hill-berries; so in time I spoke

  And gathered my loose knees from under me.

  Moreover in the broad fair halls this month

  Have I found space and bountiful abode

  To please me. I Demeter speak of this,

  Who
am the mother and the mate of things:

  For as ill men by drugs or singing words

  Shut the doors inward of the narrowed womb

  Like a lock bolted with round iron through,

  Thus I shut up the body and sweet mouth

  Of all soft pasture and the tender land,

  So that no seed can enter in by it

  Though one sow thickly, nor some grain get out

  Past the hard clods men cleave and bite with steel

  To widen the sealed lips of them for use.

  None of you is there in the peopled street

  But knows how all the dry-drawn furrows ache

  With no green spot made count of in the black:

  How the wind finds no comfortable grass

  Nor is assuaged with bud nor breath of herbs;

  And in hot autumn when ye house the stacks,

  All fields are helpless in the sun, all trees

  Stand as a man stripped out of all but skin.

  Nevertheless ye sick have help to get

  By means and stablished ordinance of God;

  For God is wiser than a good man is.

  But never shall new grass be sweet in earth

  Till I get righted of my wound and wrong

  By changing counsel of ill-minded Zeus.

  For of all other gods is none save me

  Clothed with like power to build and break the year.

  I make the lesser green begin, when spring

  Touches not earth but with one fearful foot;

  And as a careful gilder with grave art

  Soberly colours and completes the face,

  Mouth, chin and all, of some sweet work in stone,

  I carve the shapes of grass and tender corn

  And colour the ripe edges and long spikes

  With the red increase and the grace of gold,

  No tradesman in soft wools is cunninger

  To kill the secret of the fat white fleece

  With stains of blue and purple wrought in it.

  Three moons were made and three moons burnt away

  While I held journey hither out of Crete

  Comfortless, tended by grave Hecate

  Whom my wound stung with double iron point;

  For all my face was like a cloth wrung out

  With close and weeping wrinkles, and both lids

  Sodden with salt continuance of tears.

  For Hades and the sidelong will of Zeus

  And that lame wisdom that has writhen feet,

  Cunning, begotten in the bed of Shame,

  These three took evil will at me, and made

  Such counsel that when time got wing to fly

  This Hades out of summer and low fields

  Forced the bright body of Persephone:

  Out of pure grass, where she lying down, red flowers

  Made their sharp little shadows on her sides,

  Pale heat, pale colour on pale maiden flesh —

  And chill water slid over her reddening feet,

  Killing the throbs in their soft blood; and birds,

  Perched next her elbow and pecking at her hair,

  Stretched their necks more to see her than even to sing.

  A sharp thing is it I have need to say;

  For Hades holding both white wrists of hers

  Unloosed the girdle and with knot by knot

  Bound her between his wheels upon the seat,

  Bound her pure body, holiest yet and dear

  To me and God as always, clothed about

  With blossoms loosened as her knees went down.

  Let fall as she let go of this and this

  By tens and twenties, tumbled to her feet,

  White waifs or purple of the pasturage.

  Therefore with only going up and down

  My feet were wasted, and the gracious air,

  To me discomfortable and dun, became

  As weak smoke blowing in the under world.

  And finding in the process of ill days

  What part had Zeus herein, and how as mate

  He coped with Hades, yokefellow in sin,

  I set my lips against the meat of gods

  And drank not neither ate or slept in heaven.

  Nor in the golden greeting of their mouths

  Did ear take note of me, nor eye at all

  Track my feet going in the ways of them.

  Like a great fire on some strait slip of land

  Between two washing inlets of wet sea

  That burns the grass up to each lip of beach

  And strengthens, waxing in the growth of wind,

  So burnt my soul in me at heaven and earth,

  Each way a ruin and a hungry plague,

  Visible evil; nor could any night

  Put cool between mine eyelids, nor the sun

  With competence of gold fill out my want.

  Yea so my flame burnt up the grass and stones,

  Shone to the salt-white edges of thin sea,

  Distempered all the gracious work, and made

  Sick change, unseasonable increase of days

  And scant avail of seasons; for by this

  The fair gods faint in hollow heaven: there comes

  No taste of burnings of the twofold fat

  To leave their palates smooth, nor in their lips

  Soft rings of smoke and weak scent wandering;

  All cattle waste and rot, and their ill smell

  Grows alway from the lank unsavoury flesh

  That no man slays for offering; the sea

  And waters moved beneath the heath and corn

  Preserve the people of fin-twinkling fish,

  And river-flies feed thick upon the smooth;

  But all earth over is no man or bird

  (Except the sweet race of the kingfisher)

  That lacks not and is wearied with much loss.

  Meantime the purple inward of the house

  Was softened with all grace of scent and sound

  In ear and nostril perfecting my praise;

  Faint grape-flowers and cloven honey-cake

  And the just grain with dues of the shed salt

  Made me content: yet my hand loosened not

  Its gripe upon your harvest all year long.

  While I, thus woman-muffled in wan flesh

  And waste externals of a perished face,

  Preserved the levels of my wrath and love

  Patiently ruled; and with soft offices

  Cooled the sharp noons and busied the warm nights

  In care of this my choice, this child my choice,

  Triptolemus, the king’s selected son:

  That this fair yearlong body, which hath grown

  Strong with strange milk upon the mortal lip

  And nerved with half a god, might so increase

  Outside the bulk and the bare scope of man:

  And waxen over large to hold within

  Base breath of yours and this impoverished air,

  I might exalt him past the flame of stars,

  The limit and walled reach of the great world.

  Therefore my breast made common to his mouth

  Immortal savours, and the taste whereat

  Twice their hard life strains out the coloured veins

  And twice its brain confirms the narrow shell.

  Also at night, unwinding cloth from cloth

  As who unhusks an almond to the white

  And pastures curiously the purer taste,

  I bared the gracious limbs and the soft feet,

  Unswaddled the weak hands, and in mid ash

  Laid the sweet flesh of either feeble side,

  More tender for impressure of some touch

  Than wax to any pen; and lit around

  Fire, and made crawl the white worm-shapen flame,

  And leap in little angers spark by spark

  At head at once and feet; and the faint hair

  Hissed with rare sprinkles in the closer curl,


  And like scaled oarage of a keen thin fish

  In sea-water, so in pure fire his feet

  Struck out, and the flame bit not in his flesh,

  But like a kiss it curled his lip, and heat

  Fluttered his eyelids; so each night I blew

  The hot ash red to purge him to full god.

  Ill is it when fear hungers in the soul

  For painful food, and chokes thereon, being fed;

  And ill slant eyes interpret the straight sun,

  But in their scope its white is wried to black:

  By the queen Metaneira mean I this;

  For with sick wrath upon her lips, and heart

  Narrowing with fear the spleenful passages,

  She thought to thread this web’s fine ravel out,

  Nor leave her shuttle split in combing it;

  Therefore she stole on us, and with hard sight

  Peered, and stooped close; then with pale open mouth

  As the fire smote her in the eyes between

  Cried, and the child’s laugh, sharply shortening

  As fire doth under rain, fell off; the flame

  Writhed once all through and died, and in thick dark

  Tears fell from mine on the child’s weeping eyes,

  Eyes dispossessed of strong inheritance

  And mortal fallen anew. Who not the less

  From bud of beard to pale-grey flower of hair

  Shall wax vinewise to a lordly vine, whose grapes

  Bleed the red heavy blood of swoln soft wine,

  Subtle with sharp leaves’ intricacy, until

  Full of white years and blossom of hoary days

  I take him perfected; for whose one sake

  I am thus gracious to the least who stands

  Filleted with white wool and girt upon

  As he whose prayer endures upon the lip

  And falls not waste: wherefore let sacrifice

  Burn and run red in all the wider ways;

  Seeing I have sworn by the pale temples’ band

  And poppied hair of gold Persephone

  Sad-tressed and pleached low down about her brows,

  And by the sorrow in her lips, and death

  Her dumb and mournful-mouthèd minister,

  My word for you is eased of its harsh weight

  And doubled with soft promise; and your king

  Triptolemus, this Celeus dead and swathed

  Purple and pale for golden burial,

  Shall be your helper in my services,

  Dividing earth and reaping fruits thereof

  In fields where wait, well-girt, well-wreathen, all