Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 114
Even for such love’s sake strong,
Wrath fires the inveterate song
That bids hell gape for one whose bland mouth blest
All slayers and liars that sighed
Prayer as they slew and lied
Till blood had clothed his priesthood as a vest,
And hears, though darkness yet be dumb,
The silence of the trumpet of the wrath to come.
XV.
Nor lacked these lights of constellated age
A star among them fed with life more dire,
Lit with his bloodied fame, whose withering rage
Made earth for heaven’s sake one funereal pyre
And life in faith’s name one appointed stage
For death to purge the souls of men with fire.
Heaven, earth, and hell on one thrice tragic page
Mixed all their light and darkness: one man’s lyre
Gave all their echoes voice;
Bade rose-cheeked love rejoice,
And cold-lipped craft with ravenous fear conspire,
And fire-eyed faith smite hope
Dead, seeing enthroned as Pope
And crowned of heaven on earth at hell’s desire
Sin, called by death’s incestuous name
Borgia: the world that heard it flushed and quailed with shame.
XVI.
Another year, and hope triumphant heard
The consummating sound of song that spake
Conclusion to the multitudinous word
Whose expectation held her spirit awake
Till full delight for twice twelve years deferred
Bade all souls entering eat and drink, and take
A third time comfort given them, that the third
Might heap the measure up of twain, and make
The sinking year sublime
Among all sons of time
And fan in all men’s memories for his sake.
Each thought of ours became
Fire, kindling from his flame,
And music widening in his wide song’s wake.
Yea, and the world bore witness here
How great a light was risen upon this darkening year.
XVII.
It was the dawn of winter: sword in sheath,
Change, veiled and mild, came down the gradual air
With cold slow smiles that hid the doom beneath.
Five days to die in yet were autumn’s, ere
The last leaf withered from his flowerless wreath.
South, east, and north, our skies were all blown bare,
But westward over glimmering holt and heath
Cloud, wind, and light had made a heaven more fair
Than ever dream or truth
Showed earth in time’s keen youth
When men with angels communed unaware.
Above the sun’s head, now
Veiled even to the ardent brow,
Rose two sheer wings of sundering cloud, that were
As a bird’s poised for vehement flight,
Full-fledged with plumes of tawny fire and hoar grey light.
XVIII.
As midnight black, as twilight brown, they spread,
But feathered thick with flame that streaked and lined
Their living darkness, ominous else of dread,
From south to northmost verge of heaven inclined
Most like some giant angel’s, whose bent head
Bowed earthward, as with message for mankind
Of doom or benediction to be shed
From passage of his presence. Far behind,
Even while they seemed to close,
Stoop, and take flight, arose
Above them, higher than heavenliest thought may find
In light or night supreme
Of vision or of dream,
Immeasurable of men’s eyes or mounting mind,
Heaven, manifest in manifold
Light of pure pallid amber, cheered with fire of gold.
XIX.
And where the fine gold faded all the sky
Shone green as the outer sea when April glows,
Inlaid with flakes and feathers fledged to fly
Of cloud suspense in rapture and repose,
With large live petals, broad as love bids lie
Full open when the sun salutes the rose,
And small rent sprays wherewith the heavens most high
Were strewn as autumn strews the garden-close
With ruinous roseleaves whirled
About their wan chill world,
Through wind-worn bowers that now no music knows,
Spoil of the dim dusk year
Whose utter night is near,
And near the flower of dawn beyond it blows;
Till east and west were fire and light,
As though the dawn to come had flushed the coming night.
XX.
The highways paced of men that toil or play,
The byways known of none but lonely feet,
Were paven of purple woven of night and day
With hands that met as hands of friends might meet —
As though night’s were not lifted up to slay
And day’s had waxed not weaker. Peace more sweet
Than music, light more soft than shadow, lay
On downs and moorlands wan with day’s defeat,
That watched afar above
Life’s very rose of love
Let all its lustrous leaves fall, fade, and fleet,
And fill all heaven and earth
Full as with fires of birth
Whence time should feed his years with light and heat:
Nay, not life’s, but a flower more strong
Than life or time or death, love’s very rose of song.
XXI.
Song visible, whence all men’s eyes were lit
With love and loving wonder: song that glowed
Through cloud and change on souls that knew not it
And hearts that wist not whence their comfort flowed,
Whence fear was lightened of her fever-fit,
Whence anguish of her life-compelling load.
Yea, no man’s head whereon the fire alit,
Of all that passed along that sunset road
Westward, no brow so drear,
No eye so dull of cheer,
No face so mean whereon that light abode,
But as with alien pride
Strange godhead glorified
Each feature flushed from heaven with fire that showed
The likeness of its own life wrought
By strong transfiguration as of living thought.
XXII.
Nor only clouds of the everlasting sky,
Nor only men that paced that sunward way
To the utter bourne of evening, passed not by
Unblest or unillumined: none might say,
Of all things visible in the wide world’s eye,
That all too low for all that grace it lay:
The lowliest lakelets of the moorland nigh,
The narrowest pools where shallowest wavelets play,
Were filled from heaven above
With light like fire of love,
With flames and colours like a dawn in May,
As hearts that lowlier live
With light of thoughts that give
Light from the depth of souls more deep than they
Through song’s or story’s kindling scroll,
The splendour of the shadow that reveals the soul.
XXIII.
For, when such light is in the world, we share,
All of us, all the rays thereof that shine:
Its presence is alive in the unseen air,
Its fire within our veins as quickening wine;
A spirit is shed on all men everywhere,
Known or not known of all men for divine.
Yea, as the sun makes heaven, that light makes fair
All souls of ours, all lesser souls than thine,
Priest, prophet, seer and sage,
Lord of a subject age
That bears thy seal upon it for a sign;
Whose name shall be thy name,
Whose light thy light of fame,
The light of love that makes thy soul a shrine;
Whose record through all years to be
Shall bear this witness written — that its womb bare thee.
XXIV.
O mystery, whence to one man’s hand was given
Power upon all things of the spirit, and might
Whereby the veil of all the years was riven
And naked stood the secret soul of night!
O marvel, hailed of eyes whence cloud is driven,
That shows at last wrong reconciled with right
By death divine of evil and sin forgiven!
O light of song, whose fire is perfect light!
No speech, no voice, no thought,
No love, avails us aught
For service of thanksgiving in his sight
Who hath given us all for ever
Such gifts that man gave never
So many and great since first Time’s wings took flight.
Man may not praise a spirit above
Man’s: life and death shall praise him: we can only love.
XXV.
Life, everlasting while the worlds endure,
Death, self-abased before a power more high,
Shall bear one witness, and their word stand sure,
That not till time be dead shall this man die
Love, like a bird, comes loyal to his lure;
Fame flies before him, wingless else to fly.
A child’s heart toward his kind is not more pure,
An eagle’s toward the sun no lordlier eye.
Awe sweet as love and proud
As fame, though hushed and bowed,
Yearns toward him silent as his face goes by:
All crowns before his crown
Triumphantly bow down,
For pride that one more great than all draws nigh:
All souls applaud, all hearts acclaim,
One heart benign, one soul supreme, one conquering name.
LINES ON THE MONUMENT OF GIUSEPPE MAZZINI.
Italia, mother of the souls of men,
Mother divine,
Of all that served thee best with sword or pen,
All sons of thine,
Thou knowest that here the likeness of the best
Before thee stands,
The head most high, the heart found faithfullest,
The purest hands.
Above the fume and foam of time that flits,
The soul, we know,
Now sits on high where Alighieri sits
With Angelo.
Not his own heavenly tongue hath heavenly speech
Enough to say
What this man was, whose praise no thought may reach,
No words can weigh.
Since man’s first mother brought to mortal birth
Her first-born son,
Such grace befell not ever man on earth
As crowns this one.
Of God nor man was ever this thing said,
That he could give
Life back to her who gave him, whence his dead
Mother might live.
But this man found his mother dead and slain,
With fast sealed eyes,
And bade the dead rise up and live again,
And she did rise.
And all the world was bright with her through him:
But dark with strife,
Like heaven’s own sun that storming clouds bedim,
Was all his life.
Life and the clouds are vanished: hate and fear
Have had their span
Of time to hunt, and are not: he is here,
The sunlike man.
City superb that hadst Columbus first
For sovereign son,
Be prouder that thy breast hath later nurst
This mightier one.
Glory be his for ever, while his land
Lives and is free,
As with controlling breath and sovereign hand
He bade her be.
Earth shows to heaven the names by thousands told
That crown her fame,
But highest of all that heaven and earth behold
Mazzini’s name.
LES CASQUETS.
From the depths of the waters that lighten and darken
With change everlasting of life and of death,
Where hardly by noon if the lulled ear hearken
It hears the sea’s as a tired child’s breath,
Where hardly by night if an eye dare scan it
The storm lets shipwreck be seen or heard,
As the reefs to the waves and the foam to the granite
Respond one merciless word,
Sheer seen and far, in the sea’s live heaven,
A seamew’s flight from the wild sweet land,
White-plumed with foam if the wind wake, seven
Black helms as of warriors that stir not stand.
From the depths that abide and the waves that environ
Seven rocks rear heads that the midnight masks,
And the strokes of the swords of the storm are as iron
On the steel of the wave-worn casques.
Be night’s dark word as the word of a wizard,
Be the word of dawn as a god’s glad word,
Like heads of the spirits of darkness visored
That see not for ever, nor ever have heard,
These basnets, plumed as for fight or plumeless,
Crowned of the storm and by storm discrowned,
Keep ward of the lists where the dead lie tombless
And the tale of them is not found.
Nor eye may number nor hand may reckon
The tithes that are taken of life by the dark,
Or the ways of the path, if doom’s hand beckon,
For the soul to fare as a helmless bark —
Fare forth on a way that no sign showeth,
Nor aught of its goal or of aught between,
A path for her flight which no fowl knoweth,
Which the vulture’s eye hath not seen.
Here still, though the wave and the wind seem lovers
Lulled half asleep by their own soft words,
A dream as of death in the sun’s light hovers,
And a sign in the motions and cries of the birds.
Dark auguries and keen from the sweet sea-swallows
Strike noon with a sense as of midnight’s breath,
And the wing that flees and the wing that follows
Are as types of the wings of death.
For here, when the night roars round, and under
The white sea lightens and leaps like fire,
Acclaimed of storm and applauded in thunder,
Sits death on the throne of his crowned desire.
Yea, hardly the hand of the god might fashion
A seat more strong for his strength to take,
For the might of his heart and the pride of his passion
To rejoice in the wars they make.
When the heart in him brightens with blitheness of battle
And the depth of its thirst is fulfilled with strife,
And his ear with the ravage of bolts that rattle,
And the soul of death with the pride of life,
Till the darkness is loud with his dark thanksgiving
And wind and cloud are as chords of his hymn,
There is nought save death in the deep night living
And the whole night worships him.
Heaven’s height bows down to him, signed with his token,
And the sea’s depth, moved as a heart that yearns,
Heaves up to him, strong as a heart half broken,
A heart that breaks in a prayer
that burns
Of cloud is the shrine of his worship moulded,
But the altar therein is of sea-shaped stone,
Whereon, with the strength of his wide wings folded,
Sits death in the dark, alone.
He hears the word of his servant spoken,
The word that the wind his servant saith,
Storm writes on the front of the night his token,
That the skies may seem to bow down to death
But the clouds that stoop and the storms that minister
Serve but as thralls that fulfil their tasks;
And his seal is not set save here on the sinister
Crests reared of the crownless casques.
Nor flame nor plume of the storm that crowned them
Gilds or quickens their stark black strength.
Life lightens and murmurs and laughs right round them,
At peace with the noon’s whole breadth and length,
At one with the heart of the soft-souled heaven,
At one with the life of the kind wild land:
But its touch may unbrace not the strengths of the seven
Casques hewn of the storm-wind’s hand.
No touch may loosen the black braced helmlets
For the wild elves’ heads of the wild waves wrought.
As flowers on the sea are her small green realmlets,
Like heavens made out of a child’s heart’s thought;
But these as thorns of her desolate places,
Strong fangs that fasten and hold lives fast:
And the vizors are framed as for formless faces
That a dark dream sees go past.
Of fear and of fate are the frontlets fashioned,
And the heads behind them are dire and dumb.
When the heart of the darkness is scarce impassioned,
Thrilled scarce with sense of the wrath to come,
They bear the sign from of old engraven,
Though peace be round them and strife seem far,
That here is none but the night-wind’s haven,
With death for the harbour bar.
Of the iron of doom are the casquets carven,
That never the rivets thereof should burst.
When the heart of the darkness is hunger-starven,