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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  With terror, with ardour and wonder,

  With the soul of the season that wakes

  When the weight of a whole year’s thunder

  In the tidestream of autumn breaks,

  Let the flight of the wide-winged word

  Come over, come in and be heard,

  Take form and fire for our sakes.

  For a continent bloodless with travail

  Here toils and brawls as it can,

  And the web of it who shall unravel

  Of all that peer on the plan;

  Would fain grow men, but they grow not,

  And fain be free, but they know not

  One name for freedom and man?

  One name, not twain for division;

  One thing, not twain, from the birth;

  Spirit and substance and vision,

  Worth more than worship is worth;

  Unbeheld, unadored, undivined,

  The cause, the centre, the mind,

  The secret and sense of the earth.

  Here as a weakling in irons,

  Here as a weanling in bands,

  As a prey that the stake-net environs,

  Our life that we looked for stands;

  And the man-child naked and dear,

  Democracy, turns on us here

  Eyes trembling with tremulous hands

  It sees not what season shall bring to it

  Sweet fruit of its bitter desire;

  Few voices it hears yet sing to it,

  Few pulses of hearts reaspire;

  Foresees not time, nor forehears

  The noises of imminent years,

  Earthquake, and thunder, and fire:

  When crowned and weaponed and curbless

  It shall walk without helm or shield

  The bare burnt furrows and herbless

  Of war’s last flame-stricken field,

  Till godlike, equal with time,

  It stand in the sun sublime,

  In the godhead of man revealed.

  Round your people and over them

  Light like raiment is drawn,

  Close as a garment to cover them

  Wrought not of mail nor of lawn;

  Here, with hope hardly to wear,

  Naked nations and bare

  Swim, sink, strike out for the dawn.

  Chains are here, and a prison,

  Kings, and subjects, and shame;

  If the God upon you be arisen,

  How should our songs be the same?

  How, in confusion of change,

  How shall we sing, in a strange

  Land, songs praising his name?

  God is buried and dead to us,

  Even the spirit of earth,

  Freedom; so have they said to us,

  Some with mocking and mirth,

  Some with heartbreak and tears;

  And a God without eyes, without ears,

  Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth?

  The earth-god Freedom, the lonely

  Face lightening, the footprint unshod,

  Not as one man crucified only

  Nor scourged with but one life’s rod;

  The soul that is substance of nations,

  Reincarnate with fresh generations;

  The great god Man, which is God.

  But in weariest of years and obscurest

  Doth it live not at heart of all things,

  The one God and one spirit, a purest

  Life, fed from unstanchable springs?

  Within love, within hatred it is,

  And its seed in the stripe as the kiss,

  And in slaves is the germ, and in kings.

  Freedom we call it, for holier

  Name of the soul’s there is none;

  Surelier it labours if slowlier,

  Than the metres of star or of sun;

  Slowlier than life into breath,

  Surelier than time into death,

  It moves till its labour be done.

  Till the motion be done and the measure

  Circling through season and clime,

  Slumber and sorrow and pleasure,

  Vision of virtue and crime;

  Till consummate with conquering eyes,

  A soul disembodied, it rise

  From the body transfigured of time.

  Till it rise and remain and take station

  With the stars of the worlds that rejoice;

  Till the voice of its heart’s exultation

  Be as theirs an invariable voice;

  By no discord of evil estranged,

  By no pause, by no breach in it changed,

  By no clash in the chord of its choice.

  It is one with the world’s generations,

  With the spirit, the star, and the sod;

  With the kingless and king-stricken nations,

  With the cross, and the chain, and the rod;

  The most high, the most secret, most lonely,

  The earth-soul Freedom, that only

  Lives, and that only is God.

  CHRISTMAS ANTIPHONES

  I — IN CHURCH

  Thou whose birth on earth

  Angels sang to men,

  While thy stars made mirth,

  Saviour, at thy birth,

  This day born again;

  As this night was bright

  With thy cradle-ray,

  Very light of light,

  Turn the wild world’s night

  To thy perfect day.

  God whose feet made sweet

  Those wild ways they trod,

  From thy fragrant feet

  Staining field and street

  With the blood of God;

  God whose breast is rest

  In the time of strife,

  In thy secret breast

  Sheltering souls opprest

  From the heat of life;

  God whose eyes are skies

  Love-lit as with spheres

  By the lights that rise

  To thy watching eyes,

  Orbed lights of tears;

  God whose heart hath part

  In all grief that is,

  Was not man’s the dart

  That went through thine heart,

  And the wound not his?

  Where the pale souls wail,

  Held in bonds of death,

  Where all spirits quail,

  Came thy Godhead pale

  Still from human breath -

  Pale from life and strife,

  Wan with manhood, came

  Forth of mortal life,

  Pierced as with a knife,

  Scarred as with a flame.

  Thou the Word and Lord

  In all time and space

  Heard, beheld, adored,

  With all ages poured

  Forth before thy face,

  Lord, what worth in earth

  Drew thee down to die?

  What therein was worth,

  Lord, thy death and birth?

  What beneath thy sky?

  Light above all love

  By thy love was lit,

  And brought down the Dove

  Feathered from above

  With the wings of it.

  From the height of night,

  Was not thine the star

  That led forth with might

  By no worldly light

  Wise men from afar?

  Yet the wise men’s eyes

  Saw thee not more clear

  Than they saw thee rise

  Who in shepherd’s guise

  Drew as poor men near.

  Yet thy poor endure,

  And are with us yet;

  Be thy name a sure

  Refuge for thy poor

  Whom men’s eyes forget.

  Thou whose ways we praised,

  Clear alike and dark,

  Keep our works and ways

  This and all thy days

  Safe inside thine ark.

  Who shall keep thy sheep,

/>   Lord, and lose not one?

  Who save one shall keep,

  Lest the shepherds sleep?

  Who beside the Son?

  From the grave-deep wave,

  From the sword and flame,

  Thou, even thou, shalt save

  Souls of king and slave

  Only by thy Name.

  Light not born with morn

  Or her fires above,

  Jesus virgin-born,

  Held of men in scorn,

  Turn their scorn to love.

  Thou whose face gives grace

  As the sun’s doth heat,

  Let thy sunbright face

  Lighten time and space

  Here beneath thy feet.

  Bid our peace increase,

  Thou that madest morn;

  Bid oppressions cease;

  Bid the night be peace;

  Bid the day be born.

  II — OUTSIDE CHURCH

  We whose days and ways

  All the night makes dark,

  What day shall we praise

  Of these weary days

  That our life-drops mark?

  We whose mind is blind,

  Fed with hope of nought;

  Wastes of worn mankind,

  Without heart or mind,

  Without meat or thought;

  We with strife of life

  Worn till all life cease,

  Want, a whetted knife,

  Sharpening strife on strife,

  How should we love peace?

  Ye whose meat is sweet

  And your wine-cup red,

  Us beneath your feet

  Hunger grinds as wheat,

  Grinds to make you bread.

  Ye whose night is bright

  With soft rest and heat,

  Clothed like day with light,

  Us the naked night

  Slays from street to street.

  Hath your God no rod,

  That ye tread so light?

  Man on us as God,

  God as man hath trod,

  Trod us down with might.

  We that one by one

  Bleed from either’s rod.

  What for us hath done

  Man beneath the sun,

  What for us hath God?

  We whose blood is food

  Given your wealth to feed,

  From the Christless rood

  Red with no God’s blood,

  But with man’s indeed;

  How shall we that see

  Nightlong overhead

  Life, the flowerless tree,

  Nailed whereon as we

  Were our fathers dead -

  We whose ear can hear,

  Not whose tongue can name,

  Famine, ignorance, fear,

  Bleeding tear by tear

  Year by year of shame,

  Till the dry life die

  Out of bloodless breast,

  Out of beamless eye,

  Out of mouths that cry

  Till death feed with rest -

  How shall we as ye,

  Though ye bid us, pray?

  Though ye call, can we

  Hear you call, or see,

  Though ye show us day?

  We whose name is shame,

  We whose souls walk bare,

  Shall we call the same

  God as ye by name,

  Teach our lips your prayer?

  God, forgive and give,

  For His sake who died?

  Nay, for ours who live,

  How shall we forgive

  Thee, then, on our side?

  We whose right to light

  Heaven’s high noon denies,

  Whom the blind beams smite

  That for you shine bright,

  And but burn our eyes,

  With what dreams of beams

  Shall we build up day,

  At what sourceless streams

  Seek to drink in dreams

  Ere they pass away?

  In what street shall meet,

  At what market-place,

  Your feet and our feet,

  With one goal to greet,

  Having run one race?

  What one hope shall ope

  For us all as one

  One same horoscope,

  Where the soul sees hope

  That outburns the sun?

  At what shrine what wine,

  At what board what bread,

  Salt as blood or brine,

  Shall we share in sign

  How we poor were fed?

  In what hour what power

  Shall we pray for morn,

  If your perfect hour,

  When all day bears flower,

  Not for us is born?

  III — BEYOND CHURCH

  Ye that weep in sleep,

  Souls and bodies bound,

  Ye that all night keep

  Watch for change, and weep

  That no change is found;

  Ye that cry and die,

  And the world goes on

  Without ear or eye,

  And the days go by

  Till all days are gone;

  Man shall do for you,

  Men the sons of man,

  What no God would do

  That they sought unto

  While the blind years ran.

  Brotherhood of good,

  Equal laws and rights,

  Freedom, whose sweet food

  Feeds the multitude

  All their days and nights

  With the bread full-fed

  Of her body blest

  And the soul’s wine shed

  From her table spread

  Where the world is guest,

  Mingling me and thee,

  When like light of eyes

  Flashed through thee and me

  Truth shall make us free,

  Liberty make wise;

  These are they whom day

  Follows and gives light

  Whence they see to slay

  Night, and burn away

  All the seed of night.

  What of thine and mine,

  What of want and wealth,

  When one faith is wine

  For my heart and thine

  And one draught is health?

  For no sect elect

  Is the soul’s wine poured

  And her table decked;

  Whom should man reject

  From man’s common board?

  Gods refuse and choose,

  Grudge and sell and spare;

  None shall man refuse,

  None of all men lose,

  None leave out of care.

  No man’s might of sight

  Knows that hour before;

  No man’s hand hath might

  To put back that light

  For one hour the more.

  Not though all men call,

  Kneeling with void hands,

  Shall they see light fall

  Till it come for all

  Tribes of men and lands.

  No desire brings fire

  Down from heaven by prayer,

  Though man’s vain desire

  Hang faith’s wind-struck lyre

  Out in tuneless air.

  One hath breath and saith

  What the tune shall be -

  Time, who puts his breath

  Into life and death,

  Into earth and sea.

  To and fro years flow,

  Fill their tides and ebb,

  As his fingers go

  Weaving to and fro

  One unfinished web.

  All the range of change

  Hath its bounds therein,

  All the lives that range

  All the byways strange

  Named of death or sin.

  Star from far to star

  Speaks, and white moons wake,

  Watchful from afar

  What the night’s ways are

  For the morning’s sak
e.

  Many names and flames

  Pass and flash and fall,

  Night-begotten names,

  And the night reclaims,

  As she bare them, all.

  But the sun is one,

  And the sun’s name Right;

  And when light is none

  Saving of the sun,

  All men shall have light.

  All shall see and be

  Parcel of the morn;

  Ay, though blind were we,

  None shall choose but see

  When that day is born.

  A NEW YEAR’S MESSAGE TO JOSEPH MAZZINI

  Send the stars light, but send not love to me.

  Shelley.

  I

  Out of the dawning heavens that hear

  Young wings and feet of the new year

  Move through their twilight, and shed round

  Soft showers of sound,

  Soothing the season with sweet rain,

  If greeting come to make me fain,

  What is it I can send again?

  2

  I know not if the year shall send

  Tidings to usward as a friend,

  And salutation, and such things

  Bear on his wings

  As the soul turns and thirsts unto

  With hungering eyes and lips that sue

  For that sweet food which makes all new.

  3

  I know not if his light shall be

  Darkness, or else light verily:

  I know but that it will not part

  Heart’s faith from heart,

  Truth from the trust in truth, nor hope

  From sight of days unscaled that ope

  Beyond one poor year’s horoscope.

  4

  That faith in love which love’s self gives,

  O master of my spirit, lives,

  Having in presence unremoved

  Thine head beloved,

  The shadow of thee, the semitone

  Of thy voice heard at heart and known,

  The light of thee not set nor flown.