Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 149
The snake-souled anarch’s fang strikes all the land
Cold, and all hearts unsundered by the sea.
June 25, 1894.
AFTER THE VERDICT
France, cloven in twain by fire of hell and hate,
Shamed with the shame of men her meanest born,
Soldier and judge whose names, inscribed for scorn,
Stand vilest on the record writ of fate,
Lies yet not wholly vile who stood so great,
Sees yet not all her praise of old outworn.
Not yet is all her scroll of glory torn,
Or left for utter shame to desecrate.
High souls and constant hearts of faithful men
Sustain her perfect praise with tongue and pen
Indomitable as honour. Storms may toss
And soil her standard ere her bark win home:
But shame falls full upon the Christless cross
Whose brandmark signs the holy hounds of Rome.
September 1899.
THE TRANSVAAL
Patience, long sick to death, is dead. Too long
Have sloth and doubt and treason bidden us be
What Cromwell’s England was not, when the sea
To him bore witness given of Blake how strong
She stood, a commonweal that brooked no wrong
From foes less vile than men like wolves set free
Whose war is waged where none may fight or flee —
With women and with weanlings. Speech and song
Lack utterance now for loathing. Scarce we hear
Foul tongues that blacken God’s dishonoured name
With prayers turned curses and with praise found shame
Defy the truth whose witness now draws near
To scourge these dogs, agape with jaws afoam,
Down out of life. Strike, England, and strike home.
October 9, 1899.
REVERSE
The wave that breaks against a forward stroke
Beats not the swimmer back, but thrills him through
With joyous trust to win his way anew
Through stronger seas than first upon him broke
And triumphed. England’s iron-tempered oak
Shrank not when Europe’s might against her grew
Full, and her sun drank up her foes like dew,
And lion-like from sleep her strength awoke.
As bold in fight as bold in breach of trust
We find our foes, and wonder not to find,
Nor grudge them praise whom honour may not bind;
But loathing more intense than speaks disgust
Heaves England’s heart, when scorn is bound to greet
Hunters and hounds whose tongues would lick their feet.
November 1, 1899.
THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
Storm, strong with all the bitter heart of hate,
Smote England, now nineteen dark years ago,
As when the tide’s full wrath in seaward flow
Smites and bears back the swimmer. Fraud and fate
Were leagued against her: fear was fain to prate
Of honour in dishonour, pride brought low,
And humbleness whence holiness must grow,
And greatness born of shame to be so great.
The winter day that withered hope and pride
Shines now triumphal on the turning tide
That sets once more our trust in freedom free,
That leaves a ruthless and a truthless foe
And all base hopes that hailed his cause laid low,
And England’s name a light on land and sea.
February 27, 1900.
ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL BENSON
Northumberland, so proud and sad to-day,
Weep and rejoice, our mother, whom no son
More glorious than this dead and deathless one
Brought ever fame whereon no time shall prey.
Nor heed we more than he what liars dare say
Of mercy’s holiest duties left undone
Toward whelps and dams of murderous foes, whom none
Save we had spared or feared to starve and slay.
Alone as Milton and as Wordsworth found
And hailed their England, when from all around
Howled all the recreant hate of envious knaves,
Sublime she stands: while, stifled in the sound,
Each lie that falls from German boors and slaves
Falls but as filth dropt in the wandering waves.
November 4, 1901.
ASTRÆA VICTRIX
England, elect of time,
By freedom sealed sublime,
And constant as the sun that saw thy dawn
Outshine upon the sea
His own in heaven, to be
A light that night nor day should see withdrawn,
If song may speak not now thy praise,
Fame writes it higher than song may soar or faith may gaze.
Dark months of months beheld
Hope thwarted, crossed, and quelled,
And heard the heartless hounds of hatred bay
Aloud against thee, glad
As now their souls are sad
Who see their hope in hatred pass away
And wither into shame and fear
And shudder down to darkness, loth to see or hear.
Nought now they hear or see
That speaks or shows not thee
Triumphant; not as empires reared of yore,
The imperial commonweal
That bears thy sovereign seal
And signs thine orient as thy natural shore
Free, as no sons but thine may stand,
Steers lifeward ever, guided of thy pilot hand.
Fear, masked and veiled by fraud,
Found shameful time to applaud
Shame, and bow down thy banner towards the dust,
And call on godly shame
To desecrate thy name
And bid false penitence abjure thy trust:
Till England’s heart took thought at last,
And felt her future kindle from her fiery past.
Then sprang the sunbright fire
High as the sun, and higher
Than strange men’s eyes might watch it undismayed:
But winds athwart it blew
Storm, and the twilight grew
Darkness awhile, an unenduring shade:
And all base birds and beasts of night
Saw no more England now to fear, no loathsome light.
All knaves and slaves at heart
Who, knowing thee what thou art,
Abhor thee, seeing what none save here may see,
Strong freedom, taintless truth,
Supreme in ageless youth,
Howled all their hate and hope aloud at thee
While yet the wavering wind of strife
Bore hard against her sail whose freight is hope and life.
And now the quickening tide
That brings back power and pride
To faith and love whose ensign is thy name
Bears down the recreant lie
That doomed thy name to die,
Sons, friends, and foes behold thy star the same
As when it stood in heaven a sun
And Europe saw no glory left her sky save one.
And now, as then she saw,
She sees with shamefast awe
How all unlike all slaves and tyrants born
Where bondmen champ the bit
And anarchs foam and flit,
And day mocks day, and year puts year to scorn,
Our mother bore us, English men,
Ashamed of shame and strong in mercy, now as then.
We loosed not on these knaves
Their scourge-tormented slaves:
We held the hand that fain had risen to smite
The torturer fast, and made
Justice awhile afraid,
And righteo
usness forego her ruthless right:
We warred not even with these as they;
We bade not them they preyed on make of them their prey.
All murderous fraud that lurks
In hearts where hell’s craft works
Fought, crawled, and slew in darkness: they that died
Dreamed not of foes too base
For scorn to grant them grace:
Men wounded, women, children at their side,
Had found what faith in fiends may live:
And yet we gave not back what righteous doom would give.
No false white flag that fawns
On faith till murder dawns
Blood-red from hell-black treason’s heart of hate
Left ever shame’s foul brand
Seared on an English hand:
And yet our pride vouchsafes them grace too great
For other pride to dream of: scorn
Strikes retribution silent as the stars at morn.
And now the living breath
Whose life puts death to death,
Freedom, whose name is England, stirs and thrills
The burning darkness through
Whence fraud and slavery grew,
We scarce may mourn our dead whose fame fulfils
The record where her foes have read
That earth shall see none like her born ere earth be dead.
THE FIRST OF JUNE
Peace and war are one in proof of England’s deathless praise.
One divine day saw her foemen scattered on the sea
Far and fast as storm could speed: the same strong day of days
Sees the imperial commonweal set friends and foemen free.
Save where freedom reigns, whose name is England, fraud and fear
Grind and blind the face of men who look on her and lie:
Now may truth and pride in truth, whose seat of old was here,
See them shamed and stricken blind and dumb as worms that die.
Even before our hallowed hawthorn-blossom pass and cease,
Even as England shines and smiles at last upon the sun,
Comes the word that means for England more than passing peace,
Peace with honour, peace with pride in righteous work well done.
Crowned with flowers the first of all the world and all the year,
Peace, whose name is one with honour born of war, is here.
ROUNDEL FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLON
Death, I would plead against thy wrong,
Who hast reft me of my love, my wife,
And art not satiate yet with strife,
But needs wilt hold me lingering long.
No strength since then has kept me strong:
But what could hurt thee in her life,
Death?
Twain we were, and our hearts one song,
One heart: if that be dead, thy knife
Hath cut me off alive from life,
Dead as the carver’s figured throng,
Death!
A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS
Theleme is afar on the waters, adrift and afar,
Afar and afloat on the waters that flicker and gleam,
And we feel but her fragrance and see but the shadows that mar
Theleme.
In the sun-coloured mists of the sunrise and sunset that steam
As incense from urns of the twilight, her portals ajar
Let pass as a shadow the light of the sound of a dream.
But the laughter that rings from her cloisters that know not a bar
So kindles delight in desire that the souls in us deem
He erred not, the seer who discerned on the seas as a star
Theleme.
LUCIFER
Écrasez l’infâme. — VOLTAIRE
Les prêtres ont raison de l’appeler Lucifer. — VICTOR HUGO
Voltaire, our England’s lover, man divine
Beyond all Gods that ever fear adored
By right and might, by sceptre and by sword,
By godlike love of sunlike truth, made thine
Through godlike hate of falsehood’s marshlight shine
And all the fume of creeds and deeds abhorred
Whose light was darkness, till the dawn-star soared,
Truth, reason, mercy, justice, keep thy shrine
Sacred in memory’s temple, seeing that none
Of all souls born to strive before the sun
Loved ever good or hated evil more.
The snake that felt thy heel upon her head,
Night’s first-born, writhes as though she were not dead,
But strikes not, stings not, slays not as before.
THE CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS
Sound of trumpets blowing down the merriest winds of morn,
Flash of hurtless lightnings, laugh of thunders loud and glad,
Here should hail the summer day whereon a light was born
Whence the sun grew brighter, seeing the world less dark and sad.
Man of men by right divine of boyhood everlasting,
France incarnate, France immortal in her deathless boy,
Brighter birthday never shone than thine on earth, forecasting
More of strenuous mirth in manhood, more of manful joy.
Child of warriors, friend of warriors, Garibaldi’s friend,
Even thy name is as the splendour of a sunbright sword:
While the boy’s heart beats in man, thy fame shall find not end:
Time and dark oblivion bow before thee as their lord.
Youth acclaims thee gladdest of the gods that gild his days:
Age gives thanks for thee, and death lacks heart to quench thy praise.
AT A DOG’S GRAVE
I
Good night, we say, when comes the time to win
The daily death divine that shuts up sight,
Sleep, that assures for all who dwell therein
Good night.
The shadow shed round those we love shines bright
As love’s own face, when death, sleep’s gentler twin,
From them divides us even as night from light.
Shall friends born lower in life, though pure of sin,
Though clothed with love and faith to usward plight,
Perish and pass unbidden of us, their kin,
Good night?
II
To die a dog’s death once was held for shame.
Not all men so beloved and mourned shall lie
As many of these, whose time untimely came
To die.
His years were full: his years were joyous: why
Must love be sorrow, when his gracious name
Recalls his lovely life of limb and eye?
If aught of blameless life on earth may claim
Life higher than death, though death’s dark wave rise high,
Such life as this among us never came
To die.
III
White violets, there by hands more sweet than they
Planted, shall sweeten April’s flowerful air
About a grave that shows to night and day
White violets there.
A child’s light hands, whose touch makes flowers more fair,
Keep fair as these for many a March and May
The light of days that are because they were.
It shall not like a blossom pass away;
It broods and brightens with the days that bear
Fresh fruits of love, but leave, as love might pray,
White violets there.
THREE WEEKS OLD
Three weeks since there was no such rose in being;
Now may eyes made dim with deep delight
See how fair it is, laugh with love, and seeing
Praise the chance that bids us bless the sight.
Three weeks old, and a very rose of roses,
Bright and sweet as love is sweet and bright.
Heaven and earth, till a man’s
life wanes and closes,
Show not life or love a lovelier sight.
Three weeks past have renewed the rosebright creature
Day by day with life, and night by night.
Love, though fain of its every faultless feature,
Finds not words to match the silent sight.
A CLASP OF HANDS
I
Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers
That bask in heavenly heat
When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers,
Soft, small, and sweet.
A babe’s hands open as to greet
The tender touch of ours
And mock with motion faint and fleet
The minutes of the new strange hours
That earth, not heaven, must mete;
Buds fragrant still from heaven’s own bowers,
Soft, small, and sweet.
II
A velvet vice with springs of steel
That fasten in a trice
And clench the fingers fast that feel
A velvet vice —
What man would risk the danger twice,
Nor quake from head to heel?
Whom would not one such test suffice?
Well may we tremble as we kneel
In sight of Paradise,
If both a babe’s closed fists conceal
A velvet vice.
III
Two flower-soft fists of conquering clutch,
Two creased and dimpled wrists,
That match, if mottled overmuch,
Two flower-soft fists —
What heart of man dare hold the lists
Against such odds and such