And sleep’s are the tunes in its treetops heard;
No hound’s note wakens the wildwood hart,
Only the song of a secret bird.
ENVOI
In the world of dreams I have chosen my part,
To sleep for a season and hear no word
Of true love’s truth or of light love’s art,
Only the song of a secret bird.
CYRIL TOURNEUR
A sea that heaves with horror of the night,
As maddened by the moon that hangs aghast
With strain and torment of the ravening blast,
Haggard as hell, a bleak blind bloody light;
No shore but one red reef of rock in sight,
Whereon the waifs of many a wreck were cast
And shattered in the fierce nights overpast
Wherein more souls toward hell than heaven took flight;
And ‘twixt the sharktoothed rocks and swallowing shoals
A cry as out of hell from all these souls
Sent through the sheer gorge of the slaughtering sea,
Whose thousand throats, fullfed with life by death,
Fill the black air with foam and furious breath;
And over all these one star — Chastity.
A BALLAD OF FRANÇOIS VILLON
PRINCE OF ALL BALLADMAKERS
Bird of the bitter bright grey golden morn
Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years,
First of us all and sweetest singer born
Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears
Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears;
When song newborn put off the old world’s attire
And felt its tune on her changed lips expire,
Writ foremost on the roll of them that came
Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother’s name!
Alas the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn,
That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears,
And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn
And plumeplucked gaolbirds for thy starveling peers
Till death clipt close their flight with shameful shears;
Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire,
When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire
Could buy thee bread or kisses; when light fame
Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother’s name!
Poor splendid wings so frayed and soiled and torn!
Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears!
Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn,
That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers
Like joybells crossed with deathbells in our ears!
What far delight has cooled the fierce desire
That like some ravenous bird was strong to tire
On that frail flesh and soul consumed with flame,
But left more sweet than roses to respire,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother’s name?
ENVOI
Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire,
A harlot was thy nurse, a God thy sire;
Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame.
But from thy feet now death has washed the mire,
Love reads out first at head of all our quire,
Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother’s name.
PASTICHE
Now the days are all gone over
Of our singing, love by lover,
Days of summercoloured seas
Blown adrift through beam and breeze.
Now the nights are all past over
Of our dreaming, dreams that hover
In a mist of fair false things,
Nights afloat on wide wan wings.
Now the loves with faith for mother,
Now the fears with hope for brother,
Scarce are with us as strange words,
Notes from songs of last year’s birds.
Now all good that comes or goes is
As the smell of last year’s roses,
As the radiance in our eyes
Shot from summer’s ere he dies.
Now the morning faintlier risen
Seems no God come forth of prison,
But a bird of plumeplucked wing,
Pale with thoughts of evening.
Now hath hope, outraced in running,
Given the torch up of his cunning
And the palm he thought to wear
Even to his own strong child — despair.
BEFORE SUNSET
In the lower lands of day
On the hither side of night,
There is nothing that will stay,
There are all things soft to sight;
Lighted shade and shadowy light
In the wayside and the way,
Hours the sun has spared to smite,
Flowers the rain has left to play.
Shall these hours run down and say
No good thing of thee and me?
Time that made us and will slay
Laughs at love in me and thee;
But if here the flowers may see
One whole hour of amorous breath,
Time shall die, and love shall be
Lord as time was over death.
SONG: LOVE LAID HIS SLEEPLESS HEAD
Love laid his sleepless head
On a thorny rosy bed;
And his eyes with tears were red,
And pale his lips as the dead.
And fear and sorrow and scorn
Kept watch by his head forlorn,
Till the night was overworn
And the world was merry with morn.
And Joy came up with the day
And kissed Love’s lips as he lay,
And the watchers ghostly and grey
Sped from his pillow away.
And his eyes as the dawn grew bright,
And his lips waxed ruddy as light:
Sorrow may reign for a night,
But day shall bring back delight.
A VISION OF SPRING IN WINTER
I
O tender time that love thinks long to see,
Sweet foot of spring that with her footfall sows
Late snowlike flowery leavings of the snows,
Be not too long irresolute to be;
O mothermonth, where have they hidden thee?
Out of the pale time of the flowerless rose
I reach my heart out toward the springtime lands,
I stretch my spirit forth to the fair hours,
The purplest of the prime;
I lean my soul down over them, with hands
Made wide to take the ghostly growths of flowers;
I send my love back to the lovely time.
II
Where has the greenwood hid thy gracious head?
Veiled with what visions while the grey world grieves,
Or muffled with what shadows of green leaves,
What warm intangible green shadows spread
To sweeten the sweet twilight for thy bed?
What sleep enchants thee? what delight deceives?
Where the deep dreamlike dew before the dawn
Feels not the fingers of the sunlight yet
Its silver web unweave,
Thy footless ghost on some unfooted lawn
Whose air the unrisen sunbeams fear to fret
Lives a ghost’s life of daylong dawn and eve.
III
Sunrise it sees not, neither set of star,
Large nightfall, nor imperial plenilune,
Nor strong sweet shape of the fullbreasted noon;
But where the silversandalled shadows are,
Too soft for arrows of the sun to mar,
Moves with the mild gait of an ungrown moon:
Hard overhead the halfli
t crescent swims,
The tendercoloured night draws hardly breath,
The light is listening;
They watch the dawn of slendershapen limbs,
Virginal, born again of doubtful death,
Chill fosterfather of the weanling spring.
IV
As sweet desire of day before the day,
As dreams of love before the true love born,
From the outer edge of winter overworn
The ghost arisen of May before the May
Takes through dim air her unawakened way,
The gracious ghost of morning risen ere morn.
With little unblown breasts and childeyed looks
Following, the very maid, the girlchild spring,
Lifts windward her bright brows,
Dips her light feet in warm and moving brooks,
And kindles with her own mouth’s colouring
The fearful firstlings of the plumeless boughs.
V
I seek thee sleeping, and awhile I see,
Fair face that art not, how thy maiden breath
Shall put at last the deadly days to death
And fill the fields and fire the woods with thee
And seaward hollows where my feet would be
When heaven shall hear the word that April saith
To change the cold heart of the weary time,
To stir and soften all the time to tears,
Tears joyfuller than mirth;
As even to May’s clear height the young days climb
With feet not swifter than those fair first years
Whose flowers revive not with thy flowers on earth.
VI
I would not bid thee, though I might, give back
One good thing youth has given and borne away;
I crave not any comfort of the day
That is not, nor on time’s retrodden track
Would turn to meet the whiterobed hours or black
That long since left me on their mortal way;
Nor light nor love that has been, nor the breath
That comes with morning from the sun to be
And sets light hope on fire;
No fruit, no flower thought once too fair for death,
No flower nor hour once fallen from life’s green tree,
No leaf once plucked or once fulfilled desire.
VII
The morning song beneath the stars that fled
With twilight through the moonless mountain air,
While youth with burning lips and wreathless hair
Sang toward the sun that was to crown his head,
Rising; the hopes that triumphed and fell dead,
The sweet swift eyes and songs of hours that were;
These may’st thou not give back for ever; these,
As at the sea’s heart all her wrecks lie waste,
Lie deeper than the sea;
But flowers thou may’st, and winds, and hours of ease,
And all its April to the world thou may’st
Give back, and half my April back to me.
CHORIAMBICS
Love, what ailed thee to leave life that was made
lovely, we thought, with love?
What sweet visions of sleep lured thee away, down
from the light above?
What strange faces of dreams, voices that called,
hands that were raised to wave,
Lured or led thee, alas, out of the sun, down to the
sunless grave?
Ah, thy luminous eyes! once was their light fed with
the fire of day;
Now their shadowy lids cover them close, hush them
and hide away.
Ah, thy snow-coloured hands! once were they chains,
mighty to bind me fast;
Now no blood in them burns, mindless of love, senseless
of passion past.
Ah, thy beautiful hair! so was it once braided for
me, for me;
Now for death is it crowned, only for death, lover
and lord of thee.
Sweet, the kisses of death set on thy lips, colder are
they than mine;
Colder surely than past kisses that love poured for
thy lips as wine.
Lov’st thou death? is his face fairer than love’s,
brighter to look upon?
Seest thou light in his eyes, light by which love’s
pales and is overshone?
Lo the roses of death, grey as the dust, chiller of leaf
than snow!
Why let fall from thy hand love’s that were thine,
roses that loved thee so?
Large red lilies of love, sceptral and tall, lovely for
eyes to see;
Thornless blossom of love, full of the sun, fruits that
were reared for thee.
Now death’s poppies alone circle thy hair, girdle thy
breasts as white;
Bloodless blossoms of death, leaves that have sprung
never against the light.
Nay then, sleep if thou wilt; love is content; what
should he do to weep?
Sweet was love to thee once; now in thine eyes
sweeter than love is sleep.
AT PARTING
For a day and a night Love sang to us, played with us,
Folded us round from the dark and the light;
And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us,
Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us,
Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flight
For a day and a night.
From his foes that kept watch with his wings had he hidden us,
Covered us close from the eyes that would smite,
From the feet that had tracked and the tongues that had chidden us
Sheltering in shade of the myrtles forbidden us
Spirit and flesh growing one with delight
For a day and a night.
But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us:
Morning is here in the joy of its might;
With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us;
Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us;
Love can but last in us here at his height
For a day and a night.
A SONG IN SEASON
I
Thou whose beauty
Knows no duty
Due to love that moves thee never;
Thou whose mercies
Are men’s curses,
And thy smile a scourge for ever;
II
Thou that givest
Death and livest
On the death of thy sweet giving;
Thou that sparest
Not nor carest
Though thy scorn leave no love living;
III
Thou whose rootless
Flower is fruitless
As the pride its heart encloses,
But thine eyes are
As May skies are,
And thy words like spoken roses;
IV
Thou whose grace is
In men’s faces
Fierce and wayward as thy will is;
Thou whose peerless
Eyes are tearless,
And thy thoughts as cold sweet lilies;
V
Thou that takest
Hearts and makest
Wrecks of loves to strew behind thee,
Whom the swallow
Sure should follow,
Finding summer where we find thee;
VI
Thou that wakest
Hearts and breakest,
And thy broken hearts forgive thee,
That wilt make no
Pause and take no
Gift that love for love might give thee;
VII
Thou that bindest
Eyes and blinde
st,
Serving worst who served thee longest;
Thou that speakest,
And the weakest
Heart is his that was the strongest;
VIII
Take in season
Thought with reason;
Think what gifts are ours for giving;
Hear what beauty
Owes of duty
To the love that keeps it living.
IX
Dust that covers
Long dead lovers
Song blows off with breath that brightens;
At its flashes
Their white ashes
Burst in bloom that lives and lightens.
X
Had they bent not
Head or lent not
Ear to love and amorous duties,
Song had never
Saved for ever,
Love, the least of all their beauties.
XI
All the golden
Names of olden
Women yet by men’s love cherished,
All our dearest
Thoughts hold nearest,
Had they loved not, all had perished.
XII
If no fruit is
Of thy beauties,
Tell me yet, since none may win them,
What and wherefore
Love should care for
Of all good things hidden in them?
XIII
Pain for profit
Comes but of it,
If the lips that lure their lover’s
Hold no treasure
Past the measure
Of the lightest hour that hovers.
XIV
If they give not
Or forgive not
Gifts or thefts for grace or guerdon,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 65