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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Throbbed and the centre quivered with delight

  And the depth quailed with passion as of love,

  Till like the heart of some new-mated dove

  Air, light, and wave seemed full of burning rest,

  With motion as of one God’s beating breast.

  And her heart sprang in Iseult, and she drew

  With all her spirit and life the sunrise through

  And through her lips the keen triumphant air

  Sea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were,

  And through her eyes the whole rejoicing east

  Sun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feast

  Spread for the morning; and the imperious mirth

  Of wind and light that moved upon the earth,

  Making the spring, and all the fruitful might

  And strong regeneration of delight

  That swells the seedling leaf and sapling man,

  Since the first life in the first world began

  To burn and burgeon through void limbs and veins,

  And the first love with sharp sweet procreant pains

  To pierce and bring forth roses; yea, she felt

  Through her own soul the sovereign morning melt,

  And all the sacred passion of the sun;

  And as the young clouds flamed and were undone

  About him coming, touched and burnt away

  In rosy ruin and yellow spoil of day,

  The sweet veil of her body and corporal sense

  Felt the dawn also cleave it, and incense

  With light from inward and with effluent heat

  The kindling soul through fleshly hands and feet.

  And as the august great blossom of the dawn

  Burst, and the full sun scarce from sea withdrawn

  Seemed on the fiery water a flower afloat,

  So as a fire the mighty morning smote

  Throughout her, and incensed with the influent hour

  Her whole soul’s one great mystical red flower

  Burst, and the bud of her sweet spirit broke

  Rose-fashion, and the strong spring at a stroke

  Thrilled, and was cloven, and from the full sheath came

  The whole rose of the woman red as flame:

  And all her Mayday blood as from a swoon

  Flushed, and May rose up in her and was June.

  So for a space her hearth as heavenward burned:

  Then with half summer in her eyes she turned,

  And on her lips was April yet, and smiled,

  As though the spirit and sense unreconciled

  Shrank laughing back, and would not ere its hour

  Let life put forth the irrevocable flower.

  And the soft speech between them grew again

  With questionings and records of what men

  Rose mightiest, and what names for love or fight

  Shone starriest overhead of queen or knight.

  There Tristram spake of many a noble thing,

  High feast and storm of tournay round the king,

  Strange quest by perilous lands of marsh and brake

  And circling woods branch-knotted like a snake

  And places pale with sins that they had seen,

  Where was no life of red fruit or of green

  But all was as a dead face wan and dun;

  And bowers of evil builders whence the sun

  Turns silent, and the moon holds hardly light

  Above them through the sick and star-crossed night;

  And of their hands through whom such holds lay waste,

  And all their strengths dishevelled and defaced

  Fell ruinous, and were not from north to south:

  And of the might of Merlin’s ancient mouth,

  The son of no man’s loins, begot by doom

  In speechless sleep out of a spotless womb;

  For sleeping among graves where none had rest

  And ominous houses of dead bones unblest

  Among the grey grass rough as old rent hair

  And wicked herbage whitening like despair

  And blown upon with blasts of dolorous breath

  From gaunt rare gaps and hollow doors of death,

  A maid unspotted, senseless of the spell,

  Felt not about her breathe some thing of hell

  Whose child and hers was Merlin; and to him

  Great light from God gave sight of all things dim

  And wisdom of all wondrous things, to say

  What root should bear what fruit of night or day,

  And sovereign speech and counsel higher than man,

  Wherefore his youth like age was wise and wan,

  And his age sorrowful and fain to sleep;

  Yet should sleep never, neither laugh nor weep,

  Till in some depth of deep sweet land or sea

  The heavenly hands of holier Nimue,

  That was the nurse of Launcelot, and most sweet

  Of all that move with magical soft feet

  Among us, being of lovelier blood and breath,

  Should shut him in with sleep as kind as death:

  For she could pass between the quick and dead:

  And of her love toward Pelleas, for whose head

  Love-wounded and world-weared she had won

  A place beyond all pain in Avalon;

  And of the fire that wasted afterward

  The loveless eyes and bosom of Ettarde,

  In whose false love his faultless heart had burned;

  And now being rapt from her, her lost heart yearned

  To seek him, and passed hungering out of life:

  And after all the thunder-hours of strife

  That roared between King Claudas and King Ban

  How Nimue’s mighty nursling waxed to man,

  And how from his first field such grace he got

  That all men’s hearts bowed down to Launcelot,

  And how the high prince Galahault held him dear

  And led him even to love of Guenevere

  And to that kiss which made break forth as fire

  The laugh that was the flower of his desire,

  The laugh that lightened at her lips for bliss

  To win from Love so great a lover’s kiss:

  And of the toil of Balen all his days

  To reap but thorns for fruit and tears for praise,

  Whose hap was evil as his heart was good,

  And all his works and ways by wold and wood

  Led through much pain to one last labouring day

  When blood for tears washed grief with life away:

  And of the kin of Arthur, and their might;

  The misborn head of Mordred, sad as night,

  With cold waste cheeks and eyes as keen as pain,

  And the close angry lips of Agravaine;

  And gracious Gawain, scattering words as flowers,

  The kindliest head of worldy paramours;

  And the fair hand of Gareth, found in fight

  Strong as a sea-beast’s tushes and as white;

  And of the king’s self, glorious yet and glad

  For all the toil and doubt of doom he had,

  Clothed with men’s loves and full of kingly days.

  Then Iseult said: “Let each knight have his praise

  And each good man good witness of his worth;

  But when men laud the second name on earth,

  Whom would they praise to have no worldly peer

  Save him whose love makes glorious Guenevere?”

  “Nay,” Tristram said, “such man as he is none.”

  “What,” said she, “there is none such under sun

  Of all the large earth’s living? yet I deemed

  Men spake of one — but maybe men that dreamed,

  Fools and tongue-stricken, witless, babbler’s breed —

  That for all high things was his peer indeed

  Save this one highest, to be so loved and love.”

  And Tristram: “Little wit had these thereof;
<
br />   For there is none such in the world as this.”

  “Ay, upon land,” quoth Iseult, “none such is,

  I doubt not, nor where fighting folk may be;

  But were there none such between sky and sea,

  The world’s whole worth were poorer than I wist.”

  And Tristram took her flower-white hand and kissed,

  Laughing; and through his fair face as in shame

  The light blood lightened. “Hear they no such name?”

  She said; and he, “If there be such a word,

  I wot the queen’s poor harper hath not heard.”

  Then, as the fuller-feathered hours grew long,

  He holp to speed their warm slow feet with song.

  ”Love, is it morning risen or night deceased

  That makes the mirth of this triumphant east?

  Is it bliss given or bitterness put by

  That makes most glad men’s hearts at love’s high feast?

  Grief smiles, joy weeps, that day should live and die.

  ”Is it with soul’s thirst or with body’s drouth

  That summer yearns out sunward to the south,

  With all the flowers that when thy birth drew nigh

  Were molten in one rose to make thy mouth?

  O love, what care though day should live and die?

  ”Is the sun glad of all love on earth,

  The spirit and sense and work of things and worth?

  Is the moon sad because the month must fly

  And bring her death that can but bring back birth?

  For all these things as day must live and die.

  ”Love, is it day that makes thee thy delight

  Or thou that seest day made out of thy light?

  Love, as the sun and sea are thou and I,

  Sea without sun dark, sun without sea bright;

  The sun is one though day should live and die.

  ”O which is elder, night or light, who knows?

  And life or love, which first of these twain grows?

  For life is born of love to wail and cry,

  And love is born of life to heal his woes,

  And light of night, that day should live and die.

  ”O sun of heaven above the wordly sea,

  O very love, what light is this of thee!

  My sea of soul is deep as thou art high,

  But all thy light is shed through all of me,

  As love’s through love, while day shall live and die.

  ”Nay,” said Iseult, “your song is hard to read

  ”Ay?” said he: “or too light a song to heed,

  Too slight to follow it may be? Who shall sing

  Of love but as a churl before a king

  If by love’s worth men rate his worthiness?

  Yet as the poor churl’s worth to sing is less,

  Surely the more shall be the great king’s grace

  To show for churlish love a kindlier face.”

  ”No churl,” she said, “but one in soothsayer’s wise

  Who tells but truths that help no more than lies.

  I have heard men sing of love a simpler way

  Than these wrought riddles made of night and day,

  Like jewelled reins whereon the rhyme-bells hang.”

  And Tristram smiled and changed his song and sang.

  ”The breath between my lips of lips not mine,

  Like spirit in sense that makes pure sense divine,

  Is as life in them from the living sky

  That entering fills my heart with blood of thine

  And thee with me, while day shall live and die.

  ”Thy soul is shed into me with thy breath,

  And in my heart each heartbeat of thee saith

  How in thy life the lifesprings of me lie,

  Even one life to be gathered of one death

  In me and thee, though day may live and die.

  ”Ah, who knows now if in my veins it be

  My blood that feels life sweet, or blood of thee,

  And this thine eyesight kindled in mine eyes

  That shows me in thy flesh the soul of me,

  For thine made mine, while day may live and die?

  ”Ah, who knows yet if one be twain or one,

  And sunlight separable again from sun,

  And I from thee with all my lifesprings dry,

  And thou from me with all thine heartbeats done,

  Dead separate souls while day shall live and die?’

  ”I see my soul within thine eyes, and hear

  My sprit in all thy pulses thrill with fear,

  And in my lips the passion of thee sigh,

  And music of me made in mine own ear;

  Am I not thou while day shall live and die?

  ”Art thou not I as I thy love am thou?

  So let all things pass from us; we are now,

  For all that was and will be, who knows why?

  And all that is and is not, who knows how?

  Who knows? God knows why day should live and die.”

  And Iseult mused and spake no word, but sought

  Through all the hushed ways of her tongueless thought

  What face or covered likeness of a face

  In what veiled hour or dream-determined place

  She seeing might take for love’s face, and believe

  This was the sprit to whom all spirits cleave.

  For that sweet wonder of the twain made one

  And each one twain, incorporate sun with sun,

  Star with star molten, soul with soul imbued,

  And all the soul’s works, all their multitude,

  Made one thought and one vision and one song,

  Love — this thing, this, laid hand on her so strong

  She could not choose but yearn till she should see.

  So went she musing down her thoughts; but he,

  Sweet-hearted as a bird that takes the sun

  With clear strong eyes and feels the glad god run

  Bright through his blood and wide rejoicing wings,

  And opens all himself to heaven and sings,

  Made her mind light and full of noble mirth

  With words and songs the gladdest grown on earth,

  Till she was blithe and high of heart as he.

  So swam the Swallow through the springing sea

  And while they sat at speech as at a feast,

  Came a light wind fast hardening forth of the east

  And blackening till its might had marred the skies;

  And the sea thrilled as with heart-sundering sights

  One after one drawn, with each breath it drew,

  And the green hardened into iron blue,

  And the soft light went out of all its face.

  Then Tristram girt him for an oarsman’s place

  And took his oar and smote, and toiled with might

  In the east wind’s full face and the strong sea’s spite

  Labouring; and all the rowers rowed hard, but he

  More mightily than any wearier three.

  And Iseult watched him rowing with sinless eyes

  That loved him but in holy girlish wise

  For noble joy in his fair manliness

  And trust and tender wonder; none the less

  She thought if God had given her grace to be

  Man, and make war on danger of earth and sea,

  Even such a man she would be; for his stroke

  Was mightiest as the mightier water broke,

  And in sheer measure like strong music drave

  Clean through the wet weight of the wallowing wave;

  And as a tune before a great king played

  For triumph was the tune their strong strokes made,

  And sped the ship through which smooth strife of oars

  Over the mid sea’s grey foam-paven floors,

  For all the loud breach of the waves at will.

  So for an hour they fought the storm out still,

  And the shor
n foam spun from the blades, and high

  The keel sprang from the wave-ridge, and the sky

  Glared at them for a breath’s space through the rain;

  Then the bows with a sharp shock plunged again

  Down, and the sea clashed on them, and so rose

  The bright stem like one panting from swift blows,

  And as a swimmer’s joyous beaten head

  Rears itself laughing, so in that sharp stead

  The light ship lifted her long quivering bows

  As might the man his buffeted strong brows

  Out of the wave-breach; for with one stroke yet

  Went all men’s oars together, strongly set

  As to loud music, and with hearts uplift

  They smote their strong way through the drench and drift:

  Till the keen hour had chafed itself to death

  And the east wind fell fitfully, breath by breath,

  Tired; and across the thin and slackening rain

  Sprang the face southward of the sun again.

  Then all they rested and were eased at heart;

  And Iseult rose up where she sat apart,

  And with her sweet soul deepening her deep eyes

  Cast the furs from her and subtle embroideries

  That wrapped her from the storming rain and spray,

  And shining like all April in one day,

  Hair, face, and throat dashed with the straying showers,

  She stood the first of all the whole world’s flowers,

  And laughed on Tristram with her eyes, and said,

  “I too have heart then, I was not afraid.”

  And answering some light courteous word of grace

  He saw her clear face lighten on his face

  Unwittingly, with unenamoured eyes

  For the last time. A live man in such wise

  Looks in the deadly face of his fixed hour

  And laughs with lips wherein he hath no power

  To keep the life yet some five minutes’ space.

  So Tristram looked on Iseult face to face

  and knew not, and she knew not. The last time —

  The last that should be told in any rhyme

  Heard anywhere on mouths of singing men

  That ever should sing praise of them again;

  The last hour of their hurtless hearts at rest,

  The last that peace should touch them, breast to breast,

  The last that sorrow far from them should sit,

  This last was with them, and they knew not it.

  For Tristram being athirst with toil now spake,

  Saying, “Iseult, for all dear love’s labour’s sake

  Give me to drink, and give me for a pledge