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

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  To the rimmed river, and the moon burnt blank.

  But outward from the castle of King Ban

  There blew a sound of trouble, and there clomb

  A fire that thrust an arm across the air,

  Shook a rent skirt of dragging flame, and blanched

  The grey flats to such cruel white as shone

  Iron against the shadow of the sky

  Blurred out with its blind stars; for as the sea

  Gathers to lengthen a bleached edge of foam

  Whole weights of windy water, and the green

  Brine flares and hisses as the heap makes up,

  Till the gaunt wave writhes, trying to breathe,

  Then turns, and all the whited rims of steel

  Lean over, and the hollowed round roars in

  And smites the pebble forward in the mud,

  And grinds the shingle in cool whirls of white,

  Clashed through and crossed with blank assault

  of foam,

  Filled with hard thunder and drenched dregs of sand —

  So leant and leapt the many-mouthèd fire,

  So curled upon the walls, dipt, crawled, smote, clung,

  Caught like a beast that catches on the flesh,

  Waxed hoar with sick default, shivered across,

  Choked out, a snake unfed.

  Thereat King Ban

  Trembled for pain in all his blood, and death

  Under the heart caught him and made his breath

  Wince, as a worm does, wounded in the head;

  And fear began upon his flesh, and shook

  The chaste and inly sufferance of it

  Almost to ruin; a small fire and keen

  Eating in muscle and nerve and hinge of joint

  Perilous way; so bitter was the blow

  Made on his sense by treason and sharp loss.

  Then he fell weeping tears, with blood in them,

  Like that red sweat that stained Gethsemane

  With witness, when the deadly kiss had put

  Shame on the mouth of Judas; and he cried,

  Crying on God, and made out words and said:

  Fair lord, sweet lord, most pleasant to all men,

  To me so pleasant in clean days of mine

  That now are rained upon with heavy rain,

  Soiled with grey grime and with the dusty years,

  Because in all those tourneys and hot things

  I had to do with, in all riding times

  And noise of work, and on smooth holidays

  Sitting to see the smiting of hard spears,

  And spur-smiting of steeds and wrath of men,

  And gracious measure of the rounded game,

  I held you in true honour and kept white

  The hands of my allegiance as a maid’s,

  Being whole of faith and perfect in the will.

  Therefore I pray you, O God marvellous,

  See me how I am stricken among men,

  And how the lip I fed with plenteousness

  And cooled with wine of liberal courtesy

  Turns a snake’s life to poison me and clings —

  THE WHITE MAID’S WOOING

  “How will you woo her,

  This white maid of thine?

  With breaking of wastel,

  Or pouring of wine?”

  Not with pouring of cups

  Or with breaking of bread;

  But with wood that is cloven,

  And wine that is red.

  With rings will I woo her,

  With chains will I wed;

  With ships that are broken,

  With blood that is shed.

  Not with gold for a ring,

  Nor with kisses on lips,

  But with slaying of sailors

  And breaking of ships.

  “And how will you tame her,

  This mad maid of thine?

  With kisses for seal,

  Or with gold for a sign?”

  With a bit for the mouth,

  And a ring for the hand;

  With a neck-chain of foam,

  Or a waist-chain of sand.

  With the wind for a seal,

  And the sun for a sign;

  And so I will wed her,

  This white wife of mine.

  LANDOR AT FLORENCE

  THE stateliest singing mouth that speaks our

  tongue,

  The lordliest, and the brow of loftiest leaf

  Worn after the great fashion close and brief,

  Sounds and shines yet; to whom all braids

  belong

  Of plaited laurel that no weathers wrong,

  All increase of the spring and of the sheaf,

  All high delight and godliness of grief,

  All bloom and fume of summer and of song.

  The years are of his household; Fate and Fame

  Observe him; and the things of pestilence

  Die out of fear, that could not die of shame,

  Before his heel he set on their offence:

  Time’s hand shall hoard the gold of such a name

  When death has blown the dust of base men

  thence.

  1864.

  SONNET: AH, FACE AND HANDS AND BODY BEAUTIFUL

  AH, face and hands and body beautiful,

  Fair tender body, for my body’s sake

  Are you made faultless without stain or break.

  Locks close as weed in river-water cool,

  A purer throat and softer than white wool,

  Eyes where sleep always seems about to wake.

  No dead man’s flesh but feels the strong sweet ache,

  And that sharp amorous watch the years annul,

  If his grave’s grass have felt you anywhere.

  Rain and the summer shadow of the rain

  Are not so gentle to the generous year

  As your soft rapid kisses are to men,

  Felt here about my face, yea here and here,

  Caught on my lips and thrown you back again.

  GENTLE SPRING

  WRITTEN FOR A PICTURE BY FREDERICK SANDYS

  O VIRGIN Mother! of gentle days and nights,

  Spring of fresh buds and spring of soft delights,

  Come, with lips kissed of many an amorous

  hour,

  Come, with hands heavy from the fervent flower,

  The fleet first flower that feels the wind and

  sighs,

  The tenderer leaf that draws the sun and dies;

  Light butterflies like flowers alive in the air

  Circling and crowning thy delicious hair,

  And many a fruitful flower and floral fruit

  Bom of thy breath and fragrant from thy foot.

  Thee, Mother, all things born desire, and thee

  Earth and the fruitless hollows of the sea

  Praise, and thy tender winds of ungrown wing

  Fill heaven with murmurs of the sudden spring.

  CONSTANCE AND FREDERICK

  Fred. Why should it hurt you that he goes

  to Rome?

  Now I am glad; I can sit close to you,

  Feel my hand put away and lost in yours,

  And the sweet smell of your long knotted hair

  Laid on my face and mouth; can kiss you too

  And not be smitten; that is good for me.

  Con. Poor child, I love you; yea, keep close

  by me

  So am I safe. Ah! yet no woman here

  Would pity; keep you closer to me, boy!

  Fred. Is not this well? now I can touch your

  sleeve,

  Count over the thick rings and fair round stones

  About your neck and forehead, and on mine

  Lay down the soft palm of your smooth long

  hand;

  If I were as my father I would reach

  Both hands up — so — to bow your head quite

  down,

  Pulled by the hair each side, till I could touch
/>   The rows of gracious pearl that part your hair.

  Then I would kiss you, your lips would move to

  cry

  And I would make them quiet; ahl but now

  I cannot reach your lips — not so! alas,

  And then they shiver and curl sideways, see,

  And your eyes cry too.

  Con. — There — sit gravelier now I

  Nay, child, you twist my finger in the ring.

  Fred. I wonder if God means to leave us so?

  If he forget us, and my father die,

  How well that were for you! dear mother,

  think

  How we would praise him!

  Con. — Child, no words of it,

  Let us forget him. Come, I’ll spoil a tale,

  With idle remembrance. There was a king once

  Lived where the trees are great and green, with

  leaves

  The white midwinter keeps alive; there grew

  All red fruit and all flowers full of gold

  In the broad low grasses: from the poppy-root

  Came lilies, and from lily-stems there clomb

  Tall roses, with close petals, and the stalk

  Was heavy gold, solid and smooth, the wind

  Was full of soft rain gathered in the dusk

  That fell with no clouds near; so this king

  Grew past a child.

  Fred. — Taller than I? so tall?

  Con. Ay, where the sun divides the olive-

  shade;

  And on his head — Rise, here are men, I think.

  Enter Massimo and Lucrezia.

  Mas. What do these here? Hush! now,

  Madam, I pray you,

  Though we put on some outer show of man,

  Think us no more than beast: What certainty

  is there

  Or in our faces, in our brows’ mould, or

  In the clear shape and colour of our speech,

  Sets this word man upon us? We, as you,

  Are the king’s ware, his good necessities;

  (I’ll teach you shortly what this babble means,

  Fear we not there) good chattels of his use

  For one to handle; I beseech you, let not

  The outside of our speech condemn us; else

  Had we kept mouth shut ever.

  Con. — My fair lord,

  I know not what ungracious day of mine

  Hath given you tongue against me.

  Fred. — What says he, mother?

  May I not kill him? tho’ he speaks so high,

  This is no father: I may kill him then?

  Con. Hush, boy! this insolence has changed

  you. Sir,

  I pray you let me understand; you said

  (I think) and there was a secret in your speech

  I must unriddle. Lady Lucrezia,

  What madness hurts our friend? he speaks awry

  With a most broken action.

  Fred. — Speak, sir: I

  Stand for my mother.

  Mas. — So you have set him words

  To work out, to spell over, each as loud

  As any threat the mouth makes like a blow?

  Ay, must his father praise him too?

  Luc. — My lord,

  It seems that change can make the face of hope

  Grey as his own thin hair; I loved you well,

  Put honour on you, which you seemed to wear

  With natural apprehension and keen grace

  Past blame of any, over praise of me:

  Now either my hurt sense is sick to death,

  Or I conceive such meaning in your talk

  As makes me faint with shame; I would fain be

  angry;

  But shame has left me bare of even will

  To seem so angry, and to say this out

  With your set eyes so fast upon my face

  Grows like shame to me.

  Mas. — Nathless I believe

  Since you shook hands with shame’s last mes-

  senger

  And felt her hand’s mark hot long your cheek,

  Some years have made it whiter.

  Luc. — Pardon me!

  I know not, Madam, what he speaks.

  Mas. — Nor you?

  I spoke to Tancred’s kinswoman, the queen

  Who wears the blood of holy centuries

  In her fair palms and forehead; their blue

  curves

  Royally written; nay this boy’s soft lip

  So red and fair by that imperial sign,

  By your most gracious warrant; else I’ll say

  The name you had was bastarded, and you

  Some wicked season’s error.

  Luc. — Are you mad?

  See, her mouth trembles, tears drop over it,

  Her brows move: now, be silent!

  Mas. — Then I’ll end!

  I held this lady so past service, yea

  Past man’s approval or the keenest feet

  Of his obedience: You’re my kinswoman,

  And the dear honour that I have of you

  Hath borne some witness; now for her, I’ll say

  I would forget you, and unclothe my soul

  Of its strong reverence and opinion

  That makes you to me as the music is

  To the dead eithern there, as the live smell

  To some quick flower midways the lily-row.

  So I hold you — well, I’d forget all this

  To serve her; that was Lady Constance here,

  When she was no mere German ornament

  Scrawled broad with some gold flourishes at top

  Above some Austrian document to prove

  Our lord a liar, some stale letter, says

  To be just fingered by Pope Celestin

  Before he tears it, tears her name and all,

  No witness of that devil’s assurance made

  Between our masters, that strong bond that holds

  Treason each side — no empress of this mould,

  But just the lady we had just to serve,

  Live by or die for — oh, not when she bade

  But when God thought she might have need of

  him

  Tancred’s own blood, the king’s own very flesh

  Made for our sakes so beautiful and weak

  That we might even help God by serving her —

  The maiden face more gracious than was need

  To keep it perfect — yea, more love in the lip

  Than what sufficed us to accredit her

  As only Constance, more repose i’ the eyes

  Than had alone constrained her worship out —

  For certes no man ever wondered much

  Why she wants worship! (to complete her, say)

  And what were love’s work? yea, thus verily

  God wrought her with good cunning; and our

  part

  Was to be patient — some day this might end,

  She might pray God to find us room, suppose —

  So — many as we were, and such poor blood

  As this might wash her floored palace clean —

  I talk that old way! See how pale she is,

  Her eyes more narrow, and with shallow lights

  Filling them, broken hints of purposes,

  How pain has worn the golden secret out

  Some strange grand language wrote upon her

  face.

  All this more wasted than a flame that fails

  On sick lamp lit at daybreak — more rebuked,

  Chastened and beaten by the imperious time,

  Than my words last year spoken!

  Con. — Oh, not so:

  Not the soul — let the body wear so thin

  Each feature shows of it by this —

  Mas. — I said

  No man’s change that we are ruled by does much

  harm,

  God overlines it, shall not the queen live?

  But this so ne
w and bitter thing to taste

  That poisons me — this curse that changes her —

  I saw not ever.

  Con. — This —

  Mas. — That you should turn

  A woman none of those men pay to find

  The costliness of such a golden sin

  As loves by hire and loves not — no such thing

  Would praise or pity, would despise or hate —

  A shame familiar on the pander’s lip,

  Smiled out by courtiers from their slippery mouth,

  Laughed over, chattered over by the page

  A groom might spit on — handled, breathed upon

  By the spent breath in his mid office worn

  As garb and badge of his necessity

  On one permitted shoulder, by this king...

  POPE CELESTIN AND GIORDANO

  Gio. THESE matters are but shadows of the truth,

  Mean indications; time will shew, my lord,

  Our wrong lies deeper.

  Cel. — Proofs — ay, proofs you say —

  Let me see that, sir: I’ll believe your proof:

  What must I do? what stirs you up to give

  This dead dissension teeth to bite again?

  And I am old; my body is no wall

  For you to shoot behind at emperors:

  Ay, the keen spirit eats the flesh like fire,

  It’s mere slow poison, this my dignity,

  Consumes me; ah, you’re just a man, my Count,

  Cannot conceive how God’s will overcomes,

  How the Church bears one’s very soul to hold

  And stoops the shoulders; then, we’re set to pray

  Save you your souls, gather you fruit of prayer,

  Not whet you fresh blades when blood mars the old:

  Ah, what must we do?

  Gio. — But, your Holiness

  Imagines not we seek your wrong in this:

  Our words are meant to save God’s Church and you

  From this man’s red and insolent hands, put forth

  To pluck you out of kingdom, set you up

  But as a dead thing, as a monument

  That boys may spit at. Sir, if you speak of peace,

  Best cover up the face of you and weep

  Till he be here: it may be he will say

  “Throw me that hoar scalp to the dogs,” or else

  “Nay, find him some low cell not overbroad

  And slip the chain’s knot close enough to press

  The lean old wrist and elbow this may be.

  Cel. This! Oh, God help me, but how cold it gets!

  Why — but I think, by Venus, it’s no spring

  But winter comes to pinch us by the chin.