Even he shall cry upon thee a bitter cry,
That life is worse than death; then let him live,
Till death seem worse than life; then let him die.
4
O watcher at the guardless gate of kings,
O doorkeeper that serving at their feast
Hast in thine hand their doomsday drink, and seest
With eyeless sight the soul of unseen things;
Thou in whose ear the dumb time coming sings,
Death, priest and king that makest of king and priest
A name, a dream, a less thing than the least,
Hover awhile above him with closed wings,
Till the coiled soul, an evil snake-shaped beast,
Eat its base bodily lair of flesh away;
If haply, or ever its cursed life have ceased,
Or ever thy cold hands cover his head
From sight of France and freedom and broad day,
He may see these and wither and be dead.
Paris: September 1869.
XIII
THE SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY
1
O son of man, but of what man who knows?
That broughtest healing on thy leathern wings
To priests, and under them didst gather kings,
And madest friends to thee of all man’s foes;
Before thine incarnation, the tale goes,
Thy virgin mother, pure of sensual stings,
Communed by night with angels of chaste things,
And, full of grace, untimely felt the throes
Of motherhood upon her, and believed
The obscure annunciation made when late
A raven-feathered raven-throated dove
Croaked salutation to the mother of love
Whose misconception was immaculate,
And when her time was come she misconceived.
2
Thine incarnation was upon this wise,
Saviour; and out of east and west were led
To thy foul cradle by thy planet red
Shepherds of souls that feed their sheep with lies
Till the utter soul die as the body dies,
And the wise men that ask but to be fed
Though the hot shambles be their board and bed
And sleep on any dunghill shut their eyes,
So they lie warm and fatten in the mire:
And the high priest enthroned yet in thy name,
Judas, baptised thee with men’s blood for hire;
And now thou hangest nailed to thine own shame
In sight of all time, but while heaven has flame
Shalt find no resurrection from hell-fire.
December 1869.
XIV
MENTANA: SECOND ANNIVERSARY
Est-ce qu’il n’est pas temps que la foudre se prouve,
Cieux profonds, en broyant ce chien, fils de la louve?
La Légende des Siècles: — Ratbert.
1
By the dead body of Hope, the spotless lamb
Thou threwest into the high priest’s slaughtering-room,
And by the child Despair born red therefrom
As, thank the secret sire picked out to cram
With spurious spawn thy misconceiving dam,
Thou, like a worm from a town’s common tomb,
Didst creep from forth the kennel of her womb,
Born to break down with catapult and ram
Man’s builded towers of promise, and with breath
And tongue to track and hunt his hopes to death:
O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain,
And by that child mismothered, — dog, by all
Thy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal,
With what curse shall man curse thee back again?
2
By the brute soul that made man’s soul its food;
By time grown poisonous with it; by the hate
And horror of all souls not miscreate;
By the hour of power that evil hath on good;
And by the incognizable fatherhood
Which made a whorish womb the shameful gate
That opening let out loose to fawn on fate
A hound half-blooded ravening for man’s blood;
(What prayer but this for thee should any say,
Thou dog of hell, but this that Shakespeare said?)
By night deflowered and desecrated day,
That fall as one curse on one cursed head,
“Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,
That I may live to say, The dog is dead!”
1869.
XV
MENTANA: THIRD ANNIVERSARY
1
Such prayers last year were put up for thy sake;
What shall this year do that hath lived to see
The piteous and unpitied end of thee?
What moan, what cry, what clamour shall it make,
Seeing as a reed breaks all thine empire break,
And all thy great strength as a rotten tree,
Whose branches made broad night from sea to sea,
And the world shuddered when a leaf would shake?
From the unknown deep wherein those prayers were heard,
From the dark height of time there sounds a word,
Crying, Comfort; though death ride on this red hour,
Hope waits with eyes that make the morning dim,
Till liberty, reclothed with love and power,
Shall pass and know not if she tread on him.
2
The hour for which men hungered and had thirst,
And dying were loth to die before it came,
Is it indeed upon thee? and the lame
Late foot of vengeance on thy trace accurst
For years insepulchred and crimes inhearsed,
For days marked red or black with blood or shame,
Hath it outrun thee to tread out thy name?
This scourge, this hour, is this indeed the worst?
O clothed and crowned with curses, canst thou tell?
Have thy dead whispered to thee what they see
Whose eyes are open in the dark on thee
Ere spotted soul and body take farewell
Or what of life beyond the worm’s may be
Satiate the immitigable hours in hell?
1870.
XVI
THE DESCENT INTO HELL
January 9th, 1873
1
O Night and death, to whom we grudged him then,
When in man’s sight he stood not yet undone,
Your king, your priest, your saviour, and your son,
We grudge not now, who know that not again
Shall this curse come upon the sins of men,
Nor this face look upon the living sun
That shall behold not so abhorred an one
In all the days whereof his eye takes ken.
The bond is cancelled, and the prayer is heard
That seemed so long but weak and wasted breath;
Take him, for he is yours, O night and death.
Hell yawns on him whose life was as a word
Uttered by death in hate of heaven and light,
A curse now dumb upon the lips of night.
2
What shapes are these and shadows without end
That fill the night full as a storm of rain
With myriads of dead men and women slain,
Old with young, child with mother, friend with friend,
That on the deep mid wintering air impend,
Pale yet with mortal wrath and human pain,
Who died that this man dead now too might reign,
Toward whom their hands point and their faces bend?
The ruining flood would redden earth and air
If for each soul whose guiltless blood was shed
There fell but one drop on this one man’s head
Whose soul to-night stands bodiless and bare,
> For whom our hearts give thanks who put up prayer,
That we have lived to say, The dog is dead.
XVII
APOLOGIA
If wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song,
And make the sunlight fire before those eyes
That would drink draughts of peace from the unsoiled skies,
The wrongdoing is not ours, but ours the wrong,
Who hear too loud on earth and see too long
The grief that dies not with the groan that dies,
Till the strong bitterness of pity cries
Within us, that our anger should be strong.
For chill is known by heat and heat by chill,
And the desire that hope makes love to still
By the fear flying beside it or above,
A falcon fledged to follow a fledgeling dove,
And by the fume and flame of hate of ill
The exuberant light and burning bloom of love.
SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE
This collection of poems concerns Italy and its unification. First published in 1871, Songs Before Sunrise can be seen as an extension of the earlier long poem, A Song of Italy. Swinburne was partly inspired to write the songs by a meeting with Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini in March of 1867. Mazzini’s efforts helped bring about the independent and unified Italy in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers that existed until the 19th century. He also helped define the modern European movement for popular democracy in a republican state.
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872), who inspired Swinburne to compose this collection of Italian poems
CONTENTS
DEDICATION TO JOSEPH MAZZINI
PRELUDE
THE EVE OF REVOLUTION
A WATCH IN THE NIGHT
SUPER FLUMINA BABYLONIS
THE HALT BEFORE ROME — SEPTEMBER 1867
MENTANA: FIRST ANNIVERSARY
BLESSED AMONG WOMEN — TO THE SIGNORA CAIROLI
THE LITANY OF NATIONS
HERTHA
BEFORE A CRUCIFIX
TENEBRAE
HYMN OF MAN (DURING THE SESSION IN ROME OF THE ECUMENICAL COUNCIL)
THE PILGRIMS
ARMAND BARBES
QUIA MULTUM AMAVIT
GENESIS
TO WALT WHITMAN IN AMERICA
CHRISTMAS ANTIPHONES
A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE TO JOSEPH MAZZINI
MATER DOLOROSA
MATER TRIUMPHALIS
A MARCHING SONG
SIENA
COR CORDIUM
IN SAN LORENZO
TIRESIAS
THE SONG OF THE STANDARD
ON THE DOWNS
MESSIDOR
ODE ON THE INSURRECTION IN CANDIA
NON DOLET
EURYDICE TO VICTOR HUGO
AN APPEAL
PERINDE AC CADAVER
MONOTONES
THE OBLATION
A YEAR’S BURDEN — 1870
EPILOGUE
DEDICATION TO JOSEPH MAZZINI
Take, since you bade it should bear,
These, of the seed of your sowing,
Blossom or berry or weed.
Sweet though they be not, or fair,
That the dew of your word kept growing,
Sweet at least was the seed.
Men bring you love-offerings of tears,
And sorrow the kiss that assuages,
And slaves the hate-offering of wrongs,
And time the thanksgiving of years,
And years the thanksgiving of ages;
I bring you my handful of songs.
If a perfume be left, if a bloom,
Let it live till Italia be risen,
To be strewn in the dust of her car
When her voice shall awake from the tomb
England, and France from her prison,
Sisters, a star by a star.
I bring you the sword of a song,
The sword of my spirit’s desire,
Feeble; but laid at your feet,
That which was weak shall be strong,
That which was cold shall take fire,
That which was bitter be sweet.
It was wrought not with hands to smite,
Nor hewn after swordsmiths’ fashion,
Nor tempered on anvil of steel;
But with visions and dreams of the night,
But with hope, and the patience of passion,
And the signet of love for a seal.
Be it witness, till one more strong,
Till a loftier lyre, till a rarer
Lute praise her better than I,
Be it witness before you, my song,
That I knew her, the world’s banner-bearer,
Who shall cry the republican cry.
Yea, even she as at first,
Yea, she alone and none other,
Shall cast down, shall build up, shall bring home;
Slake earth’s hunger and thirst,
Lighten, and lead as a mother;
First name of the world’s names, Rome.
PRELUDE
Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,
From heart and spirit hopes and fears,
Upon the hollow stream whose bed
Is channelled by the foamless years;
And with the white the gold-haired head
Mixed running locks, and in Time’s ears
Youth’s dreams hung singing, and Time’s truth
Was half not harsh in the ears of Youth.
Between the bud and the blown flower
Youth talked with joy and grief an hour,
With footless joy and wingless grief
And twin-born faith and disbelief
Who share the seasons to devour;
And long ere these made up their sheaf
Felt the winds round him shake and shower
The rose-red and the blood-red leaf,
Delight whose germ grew never grain,
And passion dyed in its own pain.
Then he stood up, and trod to dust
Fear and desire, mistrust and trust,
And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet,
And bound for sandals on his feet
Knowledge and patience of what must
And what things may be, in the heat
And cold of years that rot and rust
And alter; and his spirit’s meat
Was freedom, and his staff was wrought
Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought.
For what has he whose will sees clear
To do with doubt and faith and fear,
Swift hopes and slow despondencies?
His heart is equal with the sea’s
And with the sea-wind’s, and his ear
Is level to the speech of these,
And his soul communes and takes cheer
With the actual earth’s equalities,
Air, light, and night, hills, winds, and streams,
And seeks not strength from strengthless dreams.
His soul is even with the sun
Whose spirit and whose eye are one,
Who seeks not stars by day, nor light
And heavy heat of day by night.
Him can no God cast down, whom none
Can lift in hope beyond the height
Of fate and nature and things done
By the calm rule of might and right
That bids men be and bear and do,
And die beneath blind skies or blue.
To him the lights of even and morn
Speak no vain things of love or scorn,
Fancies and passions miscreate
By man in things dispassionate.
Nor holds he fellowship forlorn
With souls that pray and hope and hate,
And doubt they had better not been born,
And fain would l
ure or scare off fate
And charm their doomsman from their doom
And make fear dig its own false tomb.
He builds not half of doubts and half
Of dreams his own soul’s cenotaph,
Whence hopes and fears with helpless eyes,
Wrapt loose in cast-off cerecloths, rise
And dance and wring their hands and laugh,
And weep thin tears and sigh light sighs,
And without living lips would quaff
The living spring in man that lies,
And drain his soul of faith and strength
It might have lived on a life’s length.
He hath given himself and hath not sold
To God for heaven or man for gold,
Or grief for comfort that it gives,
Or joy for grief’s restoratives.
He hath given himself to time, whose fold
Shuts in the mortal flock that lives
On its plain pasture’s heat and cold
And the equal year’s alternatives.
Earth, heaven, and time, death, life, and he,
Endure while they shall be to be.
“Yet between death and life are hours
To flush with love and hide in flowers;
What profit save in these?” men cry:
”Ah, see, between soft earth and sky,
What only good things here are ours!”
They say, “what better wouldst thou try,
What sweeter sing of? or what powers
Serve, that will give thee ere thou die
More joy to sing and be less sad,
More heart to play and grow more glad?”
Play then and sing; we too have played,
We likewise, in that subtle shade.
We too have twisted through our hair
Such tendrils as the wild Loves wear,
And heard what mirth the Maenads made,
Till the wind blew our garlands bare
And left their roses disarrayed,
And smote the summer with strange air,
And disengirdled and discrowned
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 36