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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  At the flash of an eyebeam are filled with his might:

  The sea roars backward, the storm drops dumb,

  And silence as dew on the fire of the fight

  Falls kind in our ears as his face in our sight

  With presage of peace to come.

  Fresh hope in my heart from the ashes of dread 1430

  Leaps clear as a flame from the pyres of the dead,

  That joy out of woe

  May arise as the spring out of tempest and snow,

  With the flower-feasted month in her hands rose-red

  Borne soft as a babe from the bearing-bed.

  Yet it knows not indeed if a God be friend,

  If rescue may be from the rage of the sea,

  Or the wrath of its lord have end.

  For the season is full now of death or of birth,

  To bring forth life, or an end of all; 1440

  And we know not if anything stand or fall

  That is girdled about with the round sea’s girth

  As a town with its wall;

  But thou that art highest of the Gods most high,

  That art lord if we live, that art lord though we die,

  Have heed of the tongues of our terror that cry

  For a grace to the children of Earth.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  Sons of Athens, heavy-laden with the holy weight of years,

  Be your hearts as young men’s lightened of their loathlier load

  of fears;

  For the wave is sunk whose thunder shoreward shook the shuddering

  lands, 1450

  And unbreached of warring waters Athens like a sea-rock stands.

  CHORUS.

  Well thy word has cheered us, well thy face and glittering eyes,

  that spake

  Ere thy tongue spake words of comfort: yet no pause, behoves it make

  Till the whole good hap find utterance that the Gods have given at

  length.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  All is this, that yet the city stands unforced by stranger strength.

  CHORUS.

  Sweeter sound might no mouth utter in man’s ear than this thy word.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  Feed thy soul then full of sweetness till some bitterer note be

  heard.

  CHORUS.

  None, if this ring sure, can mar the music fallen from heaven as

  rain.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  If no fire of sun or star untimely sear the tender grain.

  CHORUS.

  Fresh the dewfall of thy tidings on our hopes reflowering lies. 1460

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  Till a joyless shower and fruitless blight them, raining from

  thine eyes.

  CHORUS.

  Bitter springs have barren issues; these bedew grief’s arid sands.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  Such thank-offerings ask such altars as expect thy suppliant hands.

  CHORUS.

  Tears for triumph, wail for welfare, what strange godhead’s shrine

  requires?

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  Death’s or victory’s be it, a funeral torch feeds all its festal

  fires.

  CHORUS.

  Like a star should burn the beacon flaming from our city’s head.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  Like a balefire should the flame go up that says the king is dead.

  CHORUS.

  Out of heaven, a wild-haired meteor, shoots this new sign,

  scattering fear.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  Yea, the word has wings of fire that hovered, loth to burn thine

  ear.

  CHORUS.

  From thy lips it leapt forth loosened on a shrill and shadowy

  wing. 1470

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  Long they faltered, fain to hide it deep as death that hides

  the king.

  CHORUS.

  Dead with him blind hope lies blasted by the lightning of one sword.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  On thy tongue truth wars with error; no man’s edge hath touched

  thy lord.

  CHORUS.

  False was thine then, jangling menace like a war-steed’s

  brow-bound bell?

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  False it rang not joy nor sorrow; but by no man’s hand he fell.

  CHORUS.

  Vainly then good news and evil through so faint a trumpet spake.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  All too long thy soul yet labours, as who sleeping fain would wake,

  Waking, fain would fall on sleep again; the woe thou knowest

  not yet,

  When thou knowest, shall make thy memory thirst and hunger to

  forget.

  CHORUS.

  Long my heart has hearkened, hanging on thy clamorous ominous

  cry, 1480

  Fain yet fearful of the knowledge whence it looks to live or die;

  Now to take the perfect presage of thy dark and sidelong flight

  Comes a surer soothsayer sorrowing, sable-stoled as birds of night.

  PRAXITHEA.

  Man, what thy mother bare thee born to say

  Speak; for no word yet wavering on thy lip

  Can wound me worse than thought forestalls or fear.

  ATHENIAN HERALD.

  I have no will to weave too fine or far,

  O queen, the weft of sweet with bitter speech,

  Bright words with darkling; but the brief truth shown

  Shall plead my pardon for a lingering tongue, 1490

  Loth yet to strike hope through the heart and slay.

  The sun’s light still was lordly housed in heaven

  When the twain fronts of war encountering smote

  First fire out of the battle; but not long

  Had the fresh wave of windy fight begun

  Heaving, and all the surge of swords to sway,

  When timeless night laid hold of heaven, and took

  With its great gorge the noon as in a gulf,

  Strangled; and thicker than the shrill-winged shafts

  Flew the fleet lightnings, held in chase through heaven 1500

  By headlong heat of thunders on their trail

  Loosed as on quest of quarry; that our host

  Smit with sick presage of some wrathful God

  Quailed, but the foe as from one iron throat

  With one great sheer sole thousand-throated cry

  Shook earth, heart-staggered from their shout, and clove

  The eyeless hollow of heaven; and breached therewith

  As with an onset of strength-shattering sound

  The rent vault of the roaring noon of night

  From her throned seat of usurpation rang 1510

  Reverberate answer; such response there pealed

  As though the tide’s charge of a storming sea

  Had burst the sky’s wall, and made broad a breach

  In the ambient girth and bastion flanked with stars

  Guarding the fortress of the Gods, and all

  Crashed now together on ruin; and through that cry

  And higher above it ceasing one man’s note

  Tore its way like a trumpet: Charge, make end,

  Charge, halt not, strike, rend up their strength by the roots,

  Strike, break them, make your birthright’s promise sure, 1520

  Show your hearts hardier than the fenced land breeds

  And souls breathed in you from no spirit of earth,

  Sons of the sea’s waves; and all ears that heard

  Rang with that fiery cry, that the fine air

  Thereat was fired, and kindling filled the plain

  Full of that fierce and trumpet-quenching breath

  That spake the clarions silent; no glad song

  For folk to hear that wist how dire a God

  Begat this peril to them, what strong race

/>   Fathered the sea-born tongue that sang them death, 1530

  Threatening; so raged through the red foam of fight

  Poseidon’s son Eumolpus; and the war

  Quailed round him coming, and our side bore back,

  As a stream thwarted by the wind and sea

  That meet it midway mouth to mouth, and beat

  The flood back of its issue; but the king

  Shouted against them, crying, O Father-God,

  Source of the God my father, from thine hand

  Send me what end seems good now in thy sight,

  But death from mine to this man; and the word 1540

  Quick on his lips yet like a blast of fire

  Blew them together; and round its lords that met

  Paused all the reeling battle; two main waves

  Meeting, one hurled sheer from the sea-wall back

  That shocks it sideways, one right in from sea

  Charging, that full in face takes at one blow

  That whole recoil and ruin, with less fear

  Startle men’s eyes late shipwrecked; for a breath

  Crest fronting crest hung, wave to wave rose poised,

  Then clashed, breaker to breaker; cloud with cloud 1550

  In heaven, chariot with chariot closed on earth,

  One fourfold flash and thunder; yet a breath,

  And with the king’s spear through his red heart’s root

  Driven, like a rock split from its hill-side, fell

  Hurled under his own horsehoofs dead on earth

  The sea-beast that made war on earth from sea,

  Dumb, with no shrill note left of storming song,

  Eumolpus; and his whole host with one stroke

  Spear-stricken through its dense deep iron heart

  Fell hurtling from us, and in fierce recoil 1560

  Drew seaward as with one wide wail of waves,

  Resorbed with reluctation; such a groan

  Rose from the fluctuant refluence of its ranks,

  Sucked sullen back and strengthless; but scarce yet

  The steeds had sprung and wheels had bruised their lord

  Fallen, when from highest height of the sundering heaven

  The Father for his brother’s son’s sake slain

  Sent a sheer shaft of lightning writhen and smote

  Right on his son’s son’s forehead, that unhelmed

  Shone like the star that shines down storm, and gave 1570

  Light to men’s eyes that saw thy lord their king

  Stand and take breath from battle; then too soon

  Saw sink down as a sunset in sea-mist

  The high bright head that here in van of the earth

  Rose like a headland, and through storm and night

  Took all the sea’s wrath on it; and now dead

  They bring thee back by war-forsaken ways

  The strength called once thy husband, the great guard

  That was of all men, stay of all men’s lives,

  They bear him slain of no man but a God, 1580

  Godlike; and toward him dead the city’s gates

  Fling their arms open mother-like, through him

  Saved; and the whole clear land is purged of war.

  What wilt thou say now of this weal and woe?

  PRAXITHEA.

  I praise the Gods for Athens. O sweet Earth,

  Mother, what joy thy soul has of thy son,

  Thy life of my dead lord, mine own soul knows

  That knows thee godlike; and what grief should mine,

  What sorrow should my heart have, who behold

  Thee made so heavenlike happy? This alone 1590

  I only of all these blessed, all thy kind,

  Crave this for blessing to me, that in theirs

  Have but a part thus bitter; give me too

  Death, and the sight of eyes that meet not mine.

  And thee too from no godless heart or tongue

  Reproachful, thee too by thy living name,

  Father divine, merciful God, I call,

  Spring of my life-springs, fountain of my stream,

  Pure and poured forth to one great end with thine,

  Sweet head sublime of triumph and these tears, 1600

  Cephisus, if thou seest as gladly shed

  Thy blood in mine as thine own waves are given

  To do this great land good, to give for love

  The same lips drink and comfort the same hearts,

  Do thou then, O my father, white-souled God,

  To thy most pure earth-hallowing heart eterne

  Take what thou gavest to be given for these,

  Take thy child to thee; for her time is full,

  For all she hath borne she hath given, seen all she had

  Flow from her, from her eyes and breasts and hands 1610

  Flow forth to feed this people; but be thou,

  Dear God and gracious to all souls alive,

  Good to thine own seed also; let me sleep,

  Father; my sleepless darkling day is done,

  My day of life like night, but slumberless:

  For all my fresh fair springs, and his that ran

  In one stream’s bed with mine, are all run out

  Into the deep of death. The Gods have saved

  Athens; my blood has bought her at their hand,

  And ye sit safe; be glorious and be glad 1620

  As now for all time always, countrymen,

  And love my dead for ever; but me, me,

  What shall man give for these so good as death?

  CHORUS.

  From the cup of my heart I pour through my lips along [Str. 1.

  The mingled wine of a joyful and sorrowful song;

  Wine sweeter than honey and bitterer than blood that is poured

  From the chalice of gold, from the point of the two-edged sword.

  For the city redeemed should joy flow forth as a flood,

  And a dirge make moan for the city polluted with blood.

  Great praise should the Gods have surely, my country, of

  thee, [Ant. 1. 1630

  Were thy brow but as white as of old for thy sons to see,

  Were thy hands as bloodless, as blameless thy cheek divine;

  But a stain on it stands of the life-blood offered for thine.

  What thanks shall we give that are mixed not and marred with dread

  For the price that has ransomed thine own with thine own child’s

  head?

  For a taint there cleaves to the people redeemed with

  blood, [Str. 2.

  And a plague to the blood-red hand.

  The rain shall not cleanse it, the dew nor the sacred flood

  That blesses the glad live land.

  In the darkness of earth beneath, in the world without

  sun, [Ant. 2. 1640

  The shadows of past things reign;

  And a cry goes up from the ghost of an ill deed done,

  And a curse for a virgin slain.

  ATHENA.

  Hear, men that mourn, and woman without mate,

  Hearken; ye sick of soul with fear, and thou

  Dumb-stricken for thy children; hear ye too,

  Earth, and the glory of heaven, and winds of the air,

  And the most holy heart of the deep sea,

  Late wroth, now full of quiet; hear thou, sun,

  Rolled round with the upper fire of rolling heaven 1650

  And all the stars returning; hills and streams,

  Springs and fresh fountains, day that seest these deeds.

  Night that shalt hide not; and thou child of mine,

  Child of a maiden, by a maid redeemed,

  Blood-guiltless, though bought back with innocent blood,

  City mine own; I Pallas bring thee word,

  I virgin daughter of the most high God

  Give all you charge and lay command on all

  The word I bring be wasted not; for this

  The Gods have stablish
ed and his soul hath sworn, 1660

  That time nor earth nor changing sons of man

  Nor waves of generations, nor the winds

  Of ages risen and fallen that steer their tides

  Through light and dark of birth and lovelier death

  From storm toward haven inviolable, shall see

  So great a light alive beneath the sun

  As the awless eye of Athens; all fame else

  Shall be to her fame as a shadow in sleep

  To this wide noon at waking; men most praised

  In lands most happy for their children found 1670

  Shall hold as highest of honours given of God

  To be but likened to the least of thine,

  Thy least of all, my city; thine shall be

  The crown of all songs sung, of all deeds done

  Thine the full flower for all time; in thine hand

  Shall time be like a sceptre, and thine head

  Wear worship for a garland; nor one leaf

  Shall change or winter cast out of thy crown

  Till all flowers wither in the world; thine eyes

  Shall first in man’s flash lightning liberty, 1680

  Thy tongue shall first say freedom; thy first hand

  Shall loose the thunder terror as a hound

  To hunt from sunset to the springs of the sun

  Kings that rose up out of the populous east

  To make their quarry of thee, and shall strew

  With multitudinous limbs of myriad herds

  The foodless pastures of the sea, and make

  With wrecks immeasurable and unsummed defeat

  One ruin of all their many-folded flocks

  Ill shepherded from Asia; by thy side 1690

  Shall fight thy son the north wind, and the sea

  That was thine enemy shall be sworn thy friend

  And hand be struck in hand of his and thine

  To hold faith fast for aye; with thee, though each

  Make war on other, wind and sea shall keep

  Peace, and take truce as brethren for thy sake

  Leagued with one spirit and single-hearted strength

  To break thy foes in pieces, who shall meet

  The wind’s whole soul and might of the main sea

  Full in their face of battle, and become 1700

  A laughter to thee; like a shower of leaves

  Shall their long galleys rank by staggering rank

  Be dashed adrift on ruin, and in thy sight