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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Be sometime not a living spring of tears?

  O child, that guided of thine only will

  Didst set thy maiden foot against the gate

  To strike it open ere thine hour of fate,

  Antigone, men say not thou didst ill,

  For love’s sake and the reverence of his awe

  Divinely dying, slain by mortal law;

  For love is awful as immortal death.

  And through thee surely hath thy brother won

  Rest, out of sight of our world-weary sun,

  And in the dead land where ye ghosts draw breath

  A royal place and honour; so wast thou

  Happy, though earth have hold of thee too now.

  So hast thou life and name inviolable

  And joy it may be, sacred and severe,

  Joy secret-souled beyond all hope or fear,

  A monumental joy wherein to dwell

  Secluse and silent, a selected state,

  Serene possession of thy proper fate.

  Thou art not dead as these are dead who live

  Full of blind years, a sorrow-shaken kind,

  Nor as these are am I the prophet blind;

  They have not life that have not heart to give

  Life, nor have eyesight who lack heart to see

  When to be not is better than to be.

  O ye whom time but bears with for a span,

  How long will ye be blind and dead, how long

  Make your own souls part of your own soul’s wrong?

  Son of the word of the most high gods, man,

  Why wilt thou make thine hour of light and breath

  Emptier of all but shame than very death?

  Fool, wilt thou live for ever? though thou care

  With all thine heart for life to keep it fast,

  Shall not thine hand forego it at the last?

  Lo, thy sure hour shall take thee by the hair

  Sleeping, or when thou knowest not, or wouldst fly;

  And as men died much mightier shalt thou die.

  Yea, they are dead, men much more worth than thou;

  The savour of heroic lives that were,

  Is it not mixed into thy common air?

  The sense of them is shed about thee now:

  Feel not thy brows a wind blowing from far?

  Aches not thy forehead with a future star?

  The light that thou may’st make out of thy name

  Is in the wind of this same hour that drives,

  Blown within reach but once of all men’s lives;

  And he that puts forth hand upon the flame

  Shall have it for a garland on his head

  To sign him for a king among the dead.

  But these men that the lessening years behold,

  Who sit the most part without flame or crown,

  And brawl and sleep and wear their life-days down

  With joys and griefs ignobler than of old,

  And care not if the better day shall be -

  Are these or art thou dead, Antigone?

  PART II

  As when one wakes out of a waning dream

  And sees with instant eyes the naked thought

  Whereof the vision as a web was wrought,

  I saw beneath a heaven of cloud and gleam,

  Ere yet the heart of the young sun waxed brave,

  One like a prophet standing by a grave.

  In the hoar heaven was hardly beam or breath,

  And all the coloured hills and fields were grey,

  And the wind wandered seeking for the day,

  And wailed as though he had found her done to death

  And this grey hour had built to bury her

  The hollow twilight for a sepulchre.

  But in my soul I saw as in a glass

  A pale and living body full of grace

  There lying, and over it the prophet’s face

  Fixed; and the face was not of Tiresias,

  For such a starry fire was in his eyes

  As though their light it was that made the skies.

  Such eyes should God’s have been when very love

  Looked forth of them and set the sun aflame,

  And such his lips that called the light by name

  And bade the morning forth at sound thereof;

  His face was sad and masterful as fate,

  And like a star’s his look compassionate.

  Like a star’s gazed on of sad eyes so long

  It seems to yearn with pity, and all its fire

  As a man’s heart to tremble with desire

  And heave as though the light would bring forth song;

  Yet from his face flashed lightning on the land,

  And like the thunder-bearer’s was his hand.

  The steepness of strange stairs had tired his feet,

  And his lips yet seemed sick of that salt bread

  Wherewith the lips of banishment are fed;

  But nothing was there in the world so sweet

  As the most bitter love, like God’s own grace,

  Wherewith he gazed on that fair buried face.

  Grief and glad pride and passion and sharp shame,

  Wrath and remembrance, faith and hope and hate

  And pitiless pity of days degenerate,

  Were in his eyes as an incorporate flame

  That burned about her, and the heart thereof

  And central flower was very fire of love.

  But all about her grave wherein she slept

  Were noises of the wild wind-footed years

  Whose footprints flying were full of blood and tears,

  Shrieks as of Maenads on their hills that leapt

  And yelled as beasts of ravin, and their meat

  Was the rent flesh of their own sons to eat:

  And fiery shadows passing with strange cries,

  And Sphinx-like shapes about the ruined lands,

  And the red reek of parricidal hands

  And intermixture of incestuous eyes,

  And light as of that self-divided flame

  Which made an end of the Cadmean name.

  And I beheld again, and lo the grave,

  And the bright body laid therein as dead,

  And the same shadow across another head

  That bowed down silent on that sleeping slave

  Who was the lady of empire from her birth

  And light of all the kingdoms of the earth.

  Within the compass of the watcher’s hand

  All strengths of other men and divers powers

  Were held at ease and gathered up as flowers;

  His heart was as the heart of his whole land,

  And at his feet as natural servants lay

  Twilight and dawn and night and labouring day.

  He was most awful of the sons of God.

  Even now men seeing seemed at his lips to see

  The trumpet of the judgment that should be,

  And in his right hand terror for a rod,

  And in the breath that made the mountains bow

  The horned fire of Moses on his brow.

  The strong wind of the coming of the Lord

  Had blown as flame upon him, and brought down

  On his bare head from heaven fire for a crown,

  And fire was girt upon him as a sword

  To smite and lighten, and on what ways he trod

  There fell from him the shadow of a God.

  Pale, with the whole world’s judgment in his eyes,

  He stood and saw the grief and shame endure

  That he, though highest of angels might not cure,

  And the same sins done under the same skies,

  And the same slaves to the same tyrants thrown,

  And fain he would have slept, and fain been stone.

  But with unslumbering eyes he watched the sleep

  That sealed her sense whose eyes were suns of old;

  And the night shut and opened, and behold,

  The same gra
ve where those prophets came to weep,

  But she that lay therein had moved and stirred,

  And where those twain had watched her stood a third.

  The tripled rhyme that closed in Paradise

  With Love’s name sealing up its starry speech -

  The tripled might of hand that found in reach

  All crowns beheld far off of all men’s eyes,

  Song, colour, carven wonders of live stone -

  These were not, but the very soul alone.

  The living spirit, the good gift of grace,

  The faith which takes of its own blood to give

  That the dead veins of buried hope may live,

  Came on her sleeping, face to naked face,

  And from a soul more sweet than all the south

  Breathed love upon her sealed and breathless mouth.

  Between her lips the breath was blown as fire,

  And through her flushed veins leapt the liquid life,

  And with sore passion and ambiguous strife

  The new birth rent her and the new desire,

  The will to live, the competence to be,

  The sense to hearken and the soul to see.

  And the third prophet standing by her grave

  Stretched forth his hand and touched her, and her eyes

  Opened as sudden suns in heaven might rise,

  And her soul caught from his the faith to save;

  Faith above creeds, faith beyond records, born

  Of the pure, naked, fruitful, awful morn.

  For in the daybreak now that night was dead

  The light, the shadow, the delight, the pain,

  The purpose and the passion of those twain,

  Seemed gathered on that third prophetic head,

  And all their crowns were as one crown, and one

  His face with her face in the living sun.

  For even with that communion of their eyes

  His whole soul passed into her and made her strong;

  And all the sounds and shows of shame and wrong,

  The hand that slays, the lip that mocks and lies,

  Temples and thrones that yet men seem to see -

  Are these dead or art thou dead, Italy?

  THE SONG OF THE STANDARD

  Maiden most beautiful, mother most bountiful, lady of lands,

  Queen and republican, crowned of the centuries whose years are thy

  sands,

  See for thy sake what we bring to thee, Italy, here in our hands.

  This is the banner thy gonfalon, fair in the front of thy fight,

  Red from the hearts that were pierced for thee, white as thy

  mountains are white,

  Green as the spring of thy soul everlasting, whose life-blood is

  light.

  Take to thy bosom thy banner, a fair bird fit for the nest,

  Feathered for flight into sunrise or sunset, for eastward or west,

  Fledged for the flight everlasting, but held yet warm to thy breast.

  Gather it close to thee, song-bird or storm-bearer, eagle or dove,

  Lift it to sunward, a beacon beneath to the beacon above,

  Green as our hope in it, white as our faith in it, red as our love.

  Thunder and splendour of lightning are hid in the folds of it furled;

  Who shall unroll it but thou, as thy bolt to be handled and hurled,

  Out of whose lips is the honey, whose bosom the milk of the world?

  Out of thine hands hast thou fed us with pasture of colour and song;

  Glory and beauty by birthright to thee as thy garments belong;

  Out of thine hands thou shalt give us as surely deliverance from

  wrong.

  Out of thine eyes thou hast shed on us love as a lamp in our night,

  Wisdom a lodestar to ships, and remembrance a flame-coloured light;

  Out of thine eyes thou shalt shew us as surely the sun-dawn of right.

  Turn to us, speak to us, Italy, mother, but once and a word,

  None shall not follow thee, none shall not serve thee, not one that

  has heard;

  Twice hast thou spoken a message, and time is athirst for the third.

  Kingdom and empire of peoples thou hadst, and thy lordship made one

  North sea and south sea and east men and west men that look on the

  sun;

  Spirit was in thee and counsel, when soul in the nations was none.

  Banner and beacon thou wast to the centuries of storm-wind and foam,

  Ages that clashed in the dark with each other, and years without

  home;

  Empress and prophetess wast thou, and what wilt thou now be, O Rome?

  Ah, by the faith and the hope and the love that have need of thee

  now,

  Shines not thy face with the forethought of freedom, and burns not

  thy brow?

  Who is against her but all men? and who is beside her but thou?

  Art thou not better than all men? and where shall she turn but to

  thee?

  Lo, not a breath, not a beam, not a beacon from midland to sea;

  Freedom cries out for a sign among nations, and none will be free.

  England in doubt of her, France in despair of her, all without heart

  -

  Stand on her side in the vanward of ages, and strike on her part!

  Strike but one stroke for the love of her love of thee, sweet that

  thou art!

  Take in thy right hand thy banner, a strong staff fit for thine hand;

  Forth at the light of it lifted shall foul things flock from the

  land;

  Faster than stars from the sun shall they fly, being lighter than

  sand.

  Green thing to green in the summer makes answer, and rose-tree to

  rose;

  Lily by lily the year becomes perfect; and none of us knows

  What thing is fairest of all things on earth as it brightens and

  blows.

  This thing is fairest in all time of all things, in all time is best

  -

  Freedom, that made thee, our mother, and suckled her sons at thy

  breast;

  Take to thy bosom the nations, and there shall the world come to

  rest.

  ON THE DOWNS

  A faint sea without wind or sun;

  A sky like flameless vapour dun;

  A valley like an unsealed grave

  That no man cares to weep upon,

  Bare, without boon to crave,

  Or flower to save.

  And on the lip’s edge of the down,

  Here where the bent-grass burns to brown

  In the dry sea-wind, and the heath

  Crawls to the cliff-side and looks down,

  I watch, and hear beneath

  The low tide breathe.

  Along the long lines of the cliff,

  Down the flat sea-line without skiff

  Or sail or back-blown fume for mark,

  Through wind-worn heads of heath and stiff

  Stems blossomless and stark

  With dry sprays dark,

  I send mine eyes out as for news

  Of comfort that all these refuse,

  Tidings of light or living air

  From windward where the low clouds muse

  And the sea blind and bare

  Seems full of care.

  So is it now as it was then,

  And as men have been such are men.

  There as I stood I seem to stand,

  Here sitting chambered, and again

  Feel spread on either hand

  Sky, sea, and land.

  As a queen taken and stripped and bound

  Sat earth, discoloured and discrowned;

  As a king’s palace empty and dead

  The sky was, without light or sound;

  And on the summer’s head

  Were ashes shed.

/>   Scarce wind enough was on the sea,

  Scarce hope enough there moved in me,

  To sow with live blown flowers of white

  The green plain’s sad serenity,

  Or with stray thoughts of light

  Touch my soul’s sight.

  By footless ways and sterile went

  My thought unsatisfied, and bent

  With blank unspeculative eyes

  On the untracked sands of discontent

  Where, watched of helpless skies,

  Life hopeless lies.

  East and west went my soul to find

  Light, and the world was bare and blind

  And the soil herbless where she trod

  And saw men laughing scourge mankind,

  Unsmitten by the rod

  Of any God.

  Out of time’s blind old eyes were shed

  Tears that were mortal, and left dead

  The heart and spirit of the years,

  And on mans fallen and helmless head

  Time’s disanointing tears

  Fell cold as fears.

  Hope flowering had but strength to bear

  The fruitless fruitage of despair;

  Grief trod the grapes of joy for wine,

  Whereof love drinking unaware

  Died as one undivine

  And made no sign.

  And soul and body dwelt apart;

  And weary wisdom without heart

  Stared on the dead round heaven and sighed,

  “Is death too hollow as thou art,

  Or as man’s living pride?”

  And saying so died.

  And my soul heard the songs and groans

  That are about and under thrones,

  And felt through all time’s murmur thrill

  Fate’s old imperious semitones

  That made of good and ill

  One same tune still.

  Then “Where is God? and where is aid?

  Or what good end of these?” she said;

  ”Is there no God or end at all,