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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  The bonny Earl of Mar’s daughter

  Went forth hersell to play.

  She’s tane her to the bonny birkenshaw

  Amang the fair green leaves;

  There she saw a bonny doo

  Sat on the leaf o’ the tree.

  “O Coo-me-doo, my love sae true,

  Gin ye’ll come down to me,

  I’ll gie ye a cage of good red gowd

  For a cage of greenshaw tree.

  “Gowden hingers roun’ your cage,

  And siller roun’ your wa’,

  I’ll gar ye shine as bonny a bird

  As the bonniest ower them a’.”

  She hadna weel these words spoken,

  Nor yet she hadna said,

  Till Coo-me-doo flew frae the leaves

  And lighted on her head.

  And she’s tane hame this bonny bird,

  Brought him to bower and ha’;

  She’s garred him shine the bonniest bird

  That was out ower them a’.

  When day was gane and night was come

  In ae chamber they were that tide;

  And there she saw a goodly young man

  Stood straight up at her side.

  “How cam ye in my bower-chamber,

  For sair it marvels me,

  For the bolts are made o’ the good red gowd

  And the door-shafts of a good tree.”

  “O haud your tongue now, May Janet,

  And of your talking let me be;

  Mind ye not on your turtle-doo

  That ye brought hame wi’ ye?”

  “O whatten a man are ye,” she said,

  “Fu’ sair this marvels me;

  I doubt ye are some keen warlock

  That wons out ower the sea.

  “O come ye here for ills?” she says,

  “Or come ye for my good?

  I doubt ye are some strong warlock

  That wons out ower the flood.”

  “My mither is lady of strange landis

  Stand far out ower the sea;

  She witched me to a birdie’s shape

  For the love of your body.

  “My mither is queen of the witch-landis

  Lie baith to north and south;

  She witched me to a birdie’s body

  For the love of your goodly mouth.

  “She can well of witches’ work,

  She maketh baith mirth and meen;

  She witched me to a little bird’s body

  For the love of your twa grey een.

  “It was a’ for your yellow hair

  That I cam ower the sea;

  And it was a’ for your bonny mouth

  I took sic weird on me.”

  “O Coo-me-doo, my love sae true,

  Nae mair frae me ye’se gae.

  The stanes shall fleet on the wan waters

  Before we twain be twey.

  “O Coo-me-doo, my love sae true,

  It’s time we were abed.”

  “O weel for you, my ain sweet thing,

  It’s be as ye have said.”

  Then he’s dwelt in her bower-chamber

  Fu’ sax lang years and ane,

  And seven fair sons she’s borne to him,

  Fairer was there never nane.

  The first bairn she’s borne to him

  He’s tane him ower the sea;

  He’s gien it to his auld mither,

  Bade well nourished it should be.

  The seventh bairn she’s borne to him,

  He’s tane him frae his make;

  He’s gien it to his auld mither,

  Bade nourice it for his sake.

  And he’s dwelt in her bower-chamber

  Fu’ six years thro’ and three,

  Till there is comen an auld grey knight

  Her wed-lord for to be;

  She had nae will to his gowden gifts

  Nor wad she to his fee.

  Out then spak the bonny bird,

  He heard what they did say;

  Says: “Wae’s be to you, ye auld grey man,

  For it’s time I were away.”

  Then Coo-me-doo took flight and flew

  He flew out ower the sea;

  He’s lighted by his mither’s castle-ha’

  On a tower of gold fu’ hie.

  MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

  THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN

  “The unfriendly elements

  Forget thee utterly —

  Where, for a monument upon thy bones,

  And e’er-remaining lamps, the belching whale

  And humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse;

  Lying with simple shells” — PERICLES.

  I

  As one who having dreamed all night of death

  Puts out a hand to feel the sleeping face

  Next his, and wonders that the lips have breath —

  So we, for years not touching on their trace,

  Marvelled at news of those we counted dead,

  “For now the strong snows in some iron place

  Have covered them; their end shall not be said

  Till all the hidden parts of time be plain

  And all the writing of all years be read.”

  So men spake sadly; and their speech was vain,

  For here the end stands clear, and men at ease

  May gather the sharp fruit of that past pain

  Out in some barren creek of the cold seas,

  Where the slow shapes of the grey water-weed

  Freeze midway as the languid inlets freeze.

  II

  This is the end. There is no nobler word

  In the large writing and scored marge of time

  Than such endurance is. Ear hath not heard

  Nor hath eye seen in the world’s bounded clime

  The patience of their life, as the sharp years

  And the slow months wrought out their rounded

  rhyme

  No man made count of those keen hopes and

  fears,

  Which were such labour to them, it may be;

  That strong sweet will whereto pain ministers

  And sharpest time doth service patiently.

  Wrought without praise or failed without a name,

  Those gulfs and inlets of the channelled sea

  Hide half the witness that should fill with fame

  Our common air in England, and the breath

  That speech of them should kindle to keen flame

  Flags in the midway record of their death.

  III

  Is this the end? is praise so light a thing

  As rumour unto rumour tendereth

  And time wears out of care and thanksgiving?

  Then praise and shame have narrow difference,

  If either fly with so displumèd wing

  That chance and time and this imprisoned sense

  Can maim or measure the spanned flight of it

  By the ruled blanks of their experience,

  Then only Fortune hath the scroll and writ

  Of all good deeds our memory lives upon;

  And the slack judgment of her barren wit

  Appoints the award of all things that are done.

  IV

  The perfect choice and rarest of all good

  Abides not in broad air or public sun;

  Being spoken of, it is not understood;

  Being shown, it has no beauty to be loved;

  And the slow pulse of each man’s daily blood

  For joy thereat is not more quickly moved;

  Itself has knowledge of itself, and is

  By its own witness measured and approved;

  Yea, even well pleasèd to be otherwise;

  Nor wear the raiment of a good repute

  Nor have the record of large memories.

  Close leaves combine above the covered fruit;

  Earth, that gives much, holds back her costliest;

  And in blind night sap comes into t
he root;

  Things known are good but hidden things are

  best

  Therefore, albeit we know good deeds of these,

  Let no man deem he knows their worthiest

  He who hath found the measure of the seas,

  And the wind’s ways hath ruled and limited,

  And knows the print of their wild passages,

  The same may speak the praise of these men

  dead.

  And having heard him we may surely know

  There is no more to say than he hath said

  And as his witness is the thing was so.

  V

  What praise shall England give these men her

  friends?

  For while the bays and the large channels flow,

  In the broad sea between the iron ends

  Of the poised world where no safe sail may be,

  And for white miles the hard ice never blends

  With the chill washing edges of dull sea —

  And while to praise her green and girdled land

  Shall be the same as to praise Liberty —

  So long the record of these men shall stand,

  Because they chose not life but rather death,

  Each side being weighed with a most equal hand,

  Because the gift they had of English breath

  They did give back to England for her sake,

  Like those dead seamen of Elizabeth

  And those who wrought with Nelson or with Blake

  To do great England service their lives long —

  High honour shall they have; their deeds shall make

  Their spoken names sound sweeter than all song.

  This England hath not made a better man,

  More steadfast, or more wholly pure of wrong

  Since the large book of English praise began.

  For out of his great heart and reverence,

  And finding love too large for life to span,

  He gave up life, that she might gather thence

  The increase of the seasons and their praise.

  Therefore his name shall be her evidence,

  And wheresoever tongue or thought gainsays

  Our land the witness of her ancient worth

  She may make answer to the later days

  That she was chosen also for this birth,

  And take all honour to herself and laud,

  Because such men are made out of her earth.

  Yea, wheresoever her report is broad,

  This new thing also shall be said of her

  That hearing it, hate may not stand unawed —

  That Franklin was her friend and minister;

  So shall the alien tongue forego its blame,

  And for his love shall hold her lovelier

  And for his worth more worthy; so his fame

  Shall be the shield and strength of her defence,

  Since where he was can be not any shame.

  VI

  These things that are and shall abide from hence

  It may be that he sees them now, being dead.

  And it may be that when the smitten sense

  Began to pause, and pain was quieted,

  And labour almost kissed the lips of peace,

  And sound and sight of usual things had fled

  From the most patient face of his decease,

  He saw them also then; we cannot say,

  But surely when the painèd breath found ease

  And put the heaviness of life away,

  Such things as these were not estranged from him.

  The soul, grown too rebellious to stay,

  This shameful body where all things are dim,

  Abode awhile in them and was made glad

  In its blind pause upon the middle rim

  Between the new life and the life it had,

  This noble England that must hold him dear

  Always, and always in his name keep sad

  Her histories, and embalm with costly fear

  And with rare hope and with a royal pride

  Her memories of him that honoured her,

  Was this not worth the pain wherein he died?

  And in that lordly praise and large account

  Was not his ample spirit satisfied?

  He who slakes thirst at some uncleaner fount

  Shall thirst again; but he shall win full ease

  Who finds pure wells far up the painful mount

  VII

  For the laborious time went hard with these

  Among the thousand colours and gaunt shapes

  Of the strong ice cloven with breach of seas,

  Where the waste sullen shadow of steep capes

  Narrows across the cloudy-coloured brine,

  And by strong jets the angered foam escapes;

  And a sad touch of sun scores the sea-line

  Right at the middle motion of the noon

  And then fades sharply back, and the cliffs shine

  Fierce with keen snows against a kindled moon

  In the hard purple of the bitter sky,

  And thro’ some rift as tho’ an axe had hewn

  Two spars of crag athwart alternately.

  Flares the loose light of that large Boreal day

  Down half the sudden heaven, and with a cry

  Sick sleep is shaken from the soul away

  And men leap up to see and have delight

  For the sharp flame and strength of its white ray

  From east to west burning upon the night;

  And cliff and berg take fire from it, and stand

  Like things distinct in customary sight,

  And all the northern foam and frost, and all

  The wild ice lying large to either hand;

  And like the broken stones of some strange wall

  Built to be girdle to the utmost earth,

  Brow-bound with snows and made imperial,

  Lean crags with coloured ice for crown and girth

  Stand midway with those iron seas in face

  Far up the straitened shallows of the firth.

  VIII

  So winter-bound in such disastrous place,

  Doubtless the time seemed heavier and more

  hard

  Than elsewhere in all scope and range of space,

  Doubtless the backward thought and broad

  regard

  Was bitter to their souls, remembering

  How in soft England the warm lands were

  starred

  With gracious flowers in the green front of

  spring,

  And all the branches’ tender over-growth,

  Where the quick birds took sudden heart to

  sing;

  And how the meadows in their sweet May sloth

  Grew thick with grass as soft as song or sleep;

  So, looking back, their hearts grew sere and

  loath

  And their chafed pulses felt the blood to creep

  More vexed and painfully; yea and this too

  Possessed perchance their eyes with thirst to

  weep

  More than green fields or the May weather’s

  blue —

  Mere recollection of all dearer things.

  Slight words they used to say, slight work to do,

  When every day was more than many springs,

  And the strong April moved at heart, and made

  Sweet mock at fortune and the seat of kings;

  The naked sea and the bare lengths of land

  And all the years that fade and grow and fade

  Were pleasant years for them to live upon,

  And time’s gold raiment was not rent nor frayed;

  But now they know not if such things be done,

  Nor how the old ways and old places fare,

  Nor whether there be change in the glad sun,

  Defect and loss in all the fragrant air,

  New feet are in the waymarks of their feet,

  The
bitter savour of remembered sweet

  No doubt did touch their lips in some sharp

  guise,

  No doubt the pain of thought and fever-heat

  Put passion in the patience of their eyes.

  IX

  Yet in the edge and keenest nerve of pain, —

  For such no comfort ever wholly dies, —

  And as hurt patience healed and grew again,

  This knowledge came, that neither land nor life

  Nor all soft things whereof the will is fain

  Nor love of friends nor wedded faith of wife

  Nor all of these nor any among these

  Make a man’s best, but rather loss and strife,

  Failure, endurance, and high scorn of ease,

  Love strong as death and valour strong as love;

  Therefore among the winter-wasted seas,

  No flaw being found upon them to reprove, —

  These whom God’s grace, calling them one by one,

  In unknown ways did patiently remove,

  To have new heaven and earth, new air and sun, —

  These chose the best, therefore their name shall be

  Part of all noble things that shall be done,

  Part of the royal record of the sea.

  THE CUP OF GOD’S WRATH

  I

  DRINK deep and spare not: it is great and wide;

  The comers of it are made thick with gold;

  The wine of it was trodden out of old

  In the wine-press of Egypt, where man’s pride

  Was in his purple raiment sewn and dyed,

  And he grew lusty in God’s sight, and bold.

  The grapes of it were never bought or sold.

  God’s anger hath made red its throat and side;

  Choice of quaint spices hath he mixed therein,

  And poisoned honey of a bitter juice,

  Under that heavy lid where it hath been

  Covered like oil within a little cruise:

  What man hath will to wet his lips between,

  The wine is poured and trodden for his use.

  II

  As one mows down to burn dead grass and weeds

  Wherein the com was choked and overgrown,

  So in Time’s hand hath Change the sickle

  mown

  An overgrowth of evil days and deeds;