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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Dark roll the deepening days whose waves divide

  Unseasonably, with storm-struck change of tide,

  Tristram from Iseult: nor may sorrow say

  If better wind shall blow than yesterday

  With next day risen or any day to come.

  For ere the songs of summer’s death fell dumb,

  And autumn bade the imperial moorlands change

  Their purples, and the bracken’s bloom grow strange

  As hope’s green blossom touched with time’s harsh rust,

  Was all their joy of life shaken to dust,

  And all its fire made ashes: by the strand

  Where late they strayed and communed hand from hand

  For the last time fell separate, eyes of eyes

  Took for the last time leave, and saw the skies

  Dark with their deep division. The last time —

  The last that ever love’s rekindling rhyme

  Should keep for them life’s days and nights in tune

  With refluence of the morning and the moon

  Alternative in music, and make one

  The secrets of the stardawn and the sun

  For these twain souls ere darkness held them fast;

  The last before the labour marked for last

  And toil of utmost knighthood, till the wage

  Of rest might crown his crowning pilgrimage

  Whereon forth faring must he take farewell,

  With spear for staff and sword for scallop-shell

  And scrip wherein close memory hoarded yet

  Things holier held than death might well forget;

  The last time ere the travel were begun

  Whose goal is unbeholden of the sun,

  The last wherewith love’s eyes might yet be lit,

  Came, and they could but dream they knew not it.

  For Tristram parting from her wist at heart

  How well she wist they might not choose but part,

  And he pass forth a pilgrim, when there came

  A sound of summons in the high king’s name

  For succour toward his vassal Triamour,

  King in wild Wales, now spoiled of all his power,

  As Tristram’s father ere his fair son’s birth,

  By one the strongest of the sons of earth,

  Urgan, an iron bulk of giant mould:

  And Iseult in Tintagel as of old

  Sat crowned with state and sorrow: for her lord

  At Arthur’s hand required her back restored,

  And willingly compelled against her will

  She yielded, saying within her own soul still

  Some season yet of soft or stormier breath

  Should haply give her life again or death:

  For now nor quick nor dead nor bright nor dark

  Were all her nights and days wherein King Mark

  Held haggard watch upon her, and his eyes

  Were cloudier than the gradual wintering skies

  That closed about the wan wild land and sea.

  And bitter toward him waxed her heart: but he

  Was rent in twain betwixt harsh love and hate

  With pain and passion half compassionate

  That yearned and laboured to be quit of shame,

  And could not: and his life grew smouldering flame,

  And hers a cloud full-charged with storm and shower,

  Though touched with trembling gleams of fire’s bright flower

  That flashed and faded on its fitful verge,

  As hope would strive with darkness and emerge

  And sink, a swimmer strangled by the swallowing surge.

  But Tristram by dense hills and deepening vales

  Rode through the the wild glad wastes of glorious Wales,

  High-hearted with desire of happy fight

  And strong in soul with merrier sense of might

  Than since the fair first years that hailed him knight:

  For all his will was toward the war, so long

  Had love repressed and wrought his glory wrong,

  So far the triumph and so fair the praise

  Seemed now that kindled all his April days.

  And here in bright blown autumn, while his life

  Was summer’s yet for strength toward love or strife,

  Blithe waxed his hope toward battle, and high desire

  To pluck once more as out of circling fire

  Fame, the broad flower whose breath makes death more sweet

  Than roses crushed by love’s receding feet.

  But all the lovely land wherein he went

  The blast of ruin and ravenous war had rent;

  And black with fire the fields where homesteads were,

  And foul with festering dead the high soft air,

  And loud with wail of women many a stream

  Whose own live song was like love’s deepening dream,

  Spake all against the spoiler: wherefore still

  Wrath waxed with pity, quickening all his will,

  In Tristram’s heart for every league he rode

  Through the aching land so broad a curse bestrode

  With so supreme a shadow: till one dawn

  Above the green bloom of a gleaming lawn,

  High on the strait steep windy bridge that spanned

  A glen’s deep mouth, he saw that shadow stand

  Visible, sword on thigh and mace in hand

  Vast as the mid bulk of a roof-tree’s beam.

  So, sheer above the wild wolf-haunted stream,

  Dire as the face disfeatured of a dream

  Rose Urgan: and his eyes were night and flame;

  But like the fiery dawn were his that came

  Against him, lit with more sublime desire

  Than lifts toward heaven the leaping heart of fire:

  And strong in vantage of his perilous place

  The huge high presence, red as earth’s first race,

  Reared like a reed the might up of his mace,

  And smote: but lightly Tristram swerved, and drove

  Right in on him, whose void stroke only clove

  Air, and fell wide, thundering athwart: and he

  Sent forth a stormier cry than wind or sea

  When midnight takes the tempest for her lord

  And all the glen’s throat seemed as hell’s that roared;

  But high like heaven’s light over hell shone Tristram’s sword,

  Falling, and bright as storm shows God’s bare brand

  Flashed as it shore sheer off the huge right hand

  Whose strength was as the shadow of death on all that land.

  And like the trunk of some grim tree sawn through

  Reeled Urgan, as his left hand grasped and drew

  A steel by sorcerers tempered: and anew

  Raged the red wind of fluctuant fight, till all

  The cliffs were thrilled as by the clangorous call

  Of storm’s blown trumpets from the core of night,

  Charging: and even as with the storm-wind’s might

  On Tristram’s helm that sword crashed: and the knight

  Fell, and his arms clashed, and a wide cry brake

  From those far off that heard it, for his sake

  Soul-stricken: and that bulk of monstrous birth

  Sent forth again a cry more dire for mirth:

  But ere the sunbright arms were soiled of earth

  They flashed again, re-risen: and swift and loud

  Rang the strokes out as from a circling cloud,

  So dense the dust wrought over them its drifted shroud.

  Strong strokes, within the mist their battle made,

  Each hailed on other through the shifting shade

  That clung about them hurtling as the swift fight swayed:

  And each between the jointed corslet saw

  Break forth his foe’s bright blood at each grim flaw

  Steel made in hammered iron: till again

  The fiend put forth his might mo
re strong for pain

  And cleft the great knight’s glittering shield in twain,

  Laughing for very wrath and thirst to kill,

  A beast’s broad laugh of blind and wolfish will,

  And smote again ere Tristram’s lips drew breath

  Panting, and swept as by the sense of death,

  That surely should have touched and sealed them fast

  Save that the sheer stroke shrilled aside, and passed

  Frustrate: but answering Tristram smote anew,

  And thrust the brute beast as with lightning through

  Clean with one cleaving stroke of perfect might:

  And violently the vast bulk leapt upright,

  And plunged over the bridge, and fell: and all

  The cliffs reverberate from his monstrous fall

  Rang: and the land by Tristram’s grace was free.

  So with high laud and honour thence went he,

  And southward set his sail again, and passed

  The lone land’s ending, first beheld and last

  Of eyes that look on England from the sea:

  And his heart mourned within him, knowing how she

  Whose heart with his was fateful made fast

  Sat now fast bound, as though some charm were cast

  About her, such a brief space eastward thence,

  And yet might soul not break the bonds of sense

  And bring her to him in very life and breath

  More than had this been even the sea of death

  That washed between them, and its wide sweet light

  The dim strait’s darkness of the narrowing night

  That shuts about men dying whose souls put forth

  To pierce its passage through: but south and north

  Alike for him were other than they were:

  For all the northward coast shone smooth and fair,

  And off its iron cliffs the keen-edged air

  Blew summer, kindling from her mute bright mouth;

  But winter breathed out of the murmuring south

  Where, pale with wrathful watch on passing ships,

  The lone wife lay in wait with wan dumb lips.

  Yet, sailing where the shoreward ripple curled

  Of the most wild sweet waves in all the world

  His soul took comfort even for joy to see

  The strong deep joy of living sun and sea,

  The large deep love of living sea and land,

  As past the lonely lion-guarded strand

  Where the huge warder lifts his couchant sides,

  Asleep, above the sleepless lapse of tides,

  The light sail swept, and past the unsounded caves

  Unsearchable, wherein the pulse of waves

  Throbs through perpetual darkness to and fro,

  And the blind night swims heavily below

  While heavily the strong noon broods above,

  Even to the very bay whence very Love,

  Strong daughter of the giant gods who wrought

  Sun, earth, and sea out of their procreant thought,

  Most meetly might have risen, and most divine

  Beheld and heard things round her sound and shine

  From floors of foam and gold to walls of serpentine.

  For splendid as the limbs of that supreme

  Incarnate beauty through men’s visions gleam,

  Whereof all fairest things are even but shadow or dream,

  And lovely like as Love’s own heavenliest face,

  Gleams there and glows the presence and the grace

  Even of the mother of all, in perfect pride of place.

  For otherwhere beneath our world-wide sky

  There may not be beheld of men that die

  Aught else like this that dies not, nor may stress

  Of ages that bow down men’s works make less

  The exultant awe that clothes with power its loveliness.

  For who sets eye thereon soever knows

  How since these rocks and waves first rolled and rose

  The marvel of their many-coloured might

  Hath borne this record sensible to sight,

  The witness and the symbol of their own delight,

  The gospel graven of life’s most heavenly law,

  Joy, brooding on its own still soul with awe,

  A sense of godlike rest in godlike strife,

  The sovereign conscience of the spirit of life.

  Nor otherwhere on strand or mountain tower

  Hath such fair beauty shining forth in flower

  Put on the imperial robe of such imperious power.

  For all the radiant rocks from depth to height

  Burn with vast bloom of glories blossom-bright

  As though the sun’s own hand had thrilled them through with light

  And stained them through with splendour: yet from thence

  Such awe strikes rapture through the spirit of sense

  From all the inaccessible sea-wall’s girth,

  That exultation, bright at heart as mirth,

  Bows deeper down before the beauty of earth

  Than fear may bow down ever: nor shall one

  Who meets at Alpine dawn the mounting sun

  On heights too high for many a wing to climb

  Be touched with sense of aught seen more sublime

  Than here smiles high and sweet in face of heaven and time.

  For here the flower of fire, the soft hoar bloom

  Of springtide olive-woods, the warm green gloom

  Of clouded seas that swell and sound with dawn of doom,

  The keen thwart lightning and the wan grey light

  Of stormy sunrise crossed and vexed with night,

  Flash, loom, and laugh with divers hues in one

  From all the curved cliff’s face, till day be done,

  Against the sea’s face and the gazing sun.

  And whensoever a strong wave, high in hope,

  Sweeps up some smooth slant breadth of stone aslope,

  That glowed with duskier fire of hues less bright,

  Swift as it sweeps back springs to sudden sight

  The splendour of the moist rock’s fervent light,

  Fresh as from dew of birth when time was born

  Our of the world-conceiving womb of morn.

  All its quenched flames and darkling hues divine

  Leap into lustrous life and laugh and shine

  And darken into swift and dim decline

  For one brief breath’s space till the next wave run

  And leave it to be kissed and kindled of the sun.

  And all these things, bright as they shone before

  Man first set foot on earth or sail from shore,

  Rose not less radiant than the sun sees now

  When the autumn sea was cloven of Tristram’s prow,

  And strong in sorrow and hope and woful will

  That hope might move not nor might sorrow kill

  He held his way back toward the wild sad shore

  Whence he should come to look on these no more,

  Nor ever, save with sunless eyes shut fast,

  Sail home to sleep in home-born earth at last.

  And all these things fled fleet as light or breath

  Past, and his heart waxed cold and dull as death,

  Or swelled but as the tides of sorrow swell,

  To sing with sullen sense of slow farewell.

  So surely seemed the silence even to sigh

  Assurance of inveterate prophesy,

  “Thou shalt not come again home hither ere thou die.”

  And the wind mourned and triumphed, and the sea

  Wailed and took heart and trembled; nor might he

  Hear more of comfort in their speech, or see

  More certitude in all the waste world’s range

  Than the only certitude of death and change.

  And as the sense and semblance fluctuated

  Of all things heard and seen alive or dead

>   That smote far off upon his ears or eyes

  Or memory mixed with forecasts fain to rise

  And fancies faint as ghostliest prophecies,

  So seemed his own soul, changefully forlorn,

  To shrink and triumph and mount up and mourn;

  Yet all its fitful waters, clothed with night,

  Lost heart not wholly, lacked not wholly light,

  Seeing over life and death one star in sight

  Where evening’s gates as fair as morning’s ope,

  Whose name was memory, but whose flame was hope.

  For all the tides of thought that rose and sank

  Felt its fair strength wherefrom strong sorrow shrank

  A mightier trust than time could change or cloy,

  More strong than sorrow, more secure than joy.

  So came he, nor content nor all unblest,

  Back to the grey old land of Merlin’s rest.

  But ere six paces forth on shore he trod

  Before him stood a knight with feet unshod,

  And kneeling called upon him, as on God

  Might sick men call for pity, praying aloud

  With hands held up and head made bare and bowed;

  “Tristram, for God’s love and thine own dear fame,

  I Tristram that am one with thee in name

  And one in heart with all that praise thee — I,

  Most woful man of all that may not die

  For heartbreak and the heavier scourge of shame,

  By all thy glory done our woful name

  Beseech thee, called of all men gentlest knight,

  Be now not slow to do my sorrows right.

  I charge thee for thy fame’s sake through this land,

  I pray thee by thine own wife’s fair white hand,

  Have pity of me whose love is borne away

  By one that makes of poor men’s lives his prey,

  A felon masked with knighthood: at his side

  Seven brethren hath he night or day to ride

  With seven knights more than wait on all his will:

  And here at hand, ere yet one day fulfill

  Its flight through light and darkness, shall they fare

  Forth, and my bride among them, whom they bear

  Through these wild lands his prisoner; and if now

  I lose her, and my prayer be vain, and thou

  Less fain to serve love’s servants than of yore,

  Then surely shall I see her face no more.

  But if thou wilt, for love’s sake of the bride

  Who lay most loved of women at thy side,

  Strike with me, straight then hence behoves us ride

  And rest between the moorside and the sea

  Where we may smite them passing: but for me,

  Poor stranger, me not worthy scarce to touch

  Thy kind strong hand, how shouldst thou do so much?

  For now lone left this long time waits thy wife