Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon

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Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon Page 37

by Algernon Swinburne


  Yet thine heart shall wax heavy with sighs and thine eyelids with tears.

  1850

  Wilt thou cover thine hair with gold, and with silver thy feet?

  Hast thou taken the purple to fold thee, and made thy mouth sweet?

  Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate;

  Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate.

  For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain;

  And the veil of thine head shall be grief; and the crown shall be pain.

  ALTHÆA

  Ho, ye that wail, and ye that sing, make way

  Till I be come among you. Hide your tears,

  Ye little weepers, and your laughing lips,

  Ye laughers for a little; lo mine eyes

  1860

  That outweep heaven at rainiest, and my mouth

  That laughs as gods laugh at us. Fate’s are we,

  Yet fate is ours a breathing-space; yea, mine,

  Fate is made mine for ever; he is my son,

  My bedfellow, my brother. You strong gods,

  Give place unto me; I am as any of you,

  To give life and to take life. Thou, old earth,

  That hast made man and unmade; thou whose mouth

  Looks red from the eaten fruits of thine own womb;

  Behold me with what lips upon what food

  1870

  I feed and fill my body; even with flesh

  Made of my body. Lo, the fire I lit

  I burn with fire to quench it; yea, with flame

  I burn up even the dust and ash thereof.

  CHORUS

  Woman, what fire is this thou burnest with?

  ALTHÆA

  Yea to the bone, yea to the blood and all.

  CHORUS

  For this thy face and hair are as one fire.

  ALTHÆA

  A tongue that licks and beats upon the dust.

  CHORUS

  And in thine eyes are hollow light and heat.

  ALTHÆA

  Of flame not fed with hand or frankincense.

  CHORUS

  1880

  I fear thee for the trembling of thine eyes.

  ALTHÆA

  Neither with love they tremble nor for fear.

  CHORUS

  And thy mouth shuddering like a shot bird.

  ALTHÆA

  Not as the bride’s mouth when man kisses it.

  CHORUS

  Nay, but what thing is this thing thou hast done?

  ALTHÆA

  Look, I am silent, speak your eyes for me.

  CHORUS

  I see a faint fire lightening from the hall.

  ALTHÆA

  Gaze, stretch your eyes, strain till the lids drop off.

  CHORUS

  Flushed pillars down the flickering vestibule.

  ALTHÆA

  Stretch with your necks like birds: cry, chirp as they.

  CHORUS

  1890

  And a long brand that blackens: and white dust.

  ALTHÆA

  O children, what is this ye see? your eyes

  Are blinder than night’s face at fall of moon.

  That is my son, my flesh, my fruit of life,

  My travail, and the year’s weight of my womb,

  Meleager, a fire enkindled of mine hands

  And of mine hands extinguished; this is he.

  CHORUS

  O gods, what word has flown out at thy mouth?

  ALTHÆA

  I did this and I say this and I die.

  CHORUS

  Death stands upon the doorway of thy lips

  1900

  And in thy mouth has death set up his house.

  ALTHÆA

  O death, a little, a little while, sweet death,

  Until I see the brand burnt down and die.

  CHORUS

  She reels as any reed under the wind,

  And cleaves unto the ground with staggering feet.

  ALTHÆA

  Girls, one thing will I say and hold my peace.

  I that did this will weep not nor cry out,

  Cry ye and weep: I will not call on gods,

  Call ye on them; I will not pity man,

  Shew ye your pity. I know not if I live;

  1910

  Save that I feel the fire upon my face

  And on my cheek the burning of a brand.

  Yea the smoke bites me, yea I drink the steam

  With nostril and with eyelid and with lip

  Insatiate and intolerant; and mine hands

  Burn, and fire feeds upon mine eyes; I reel

  As one made drunk with living, whence he draws

  Drunken delight; yet I, though mad for joy,

  Loathe my long living and am waxen red

  As with the shadow of shed blood; behold,

  1920

  I am kindled with the flames that fade in him,

  I am swollen with subsiding of his veins,

  I am flooded with his ebbing; my lit eyes

  Flame with the falling fire that leaves his lids

  Bloodless; my cheek is luminous with blood

  Because his face is ashen. Yet, O child,

  Son, first-born, fairest – O sweet mouth, sweet eyes,

  That drew my life out through my suckling breast,

  That shone and clove mine heart through – O soft knees

  Clinging, O tender treadings of soft feet,

  1930

  Cheeks warm with little kissings – O child, child,

  What have we made each other? Lo, I felt

  Thy weight cleave to me, a burden of beauty, O son,

  Thy cradled brows and loveliest loving lips,

  The floral hair, the little lightening eyes,

  And all thy goodly glory; with mine hands

  Delicately I fed thee, with my tongue

  Tenderly spake, saying, Verily in God’s time,

  For all the little likeness of thy limbs,

  Son, I shall make thee a kingly man to fight,

  1940

  A lordly leader; and hear before I die,

  ‘She bore the goodliest sword of all the world.’

  Oh! oh! For all my life turns round on me;

  I am severed from myself, my name is gone,

  My name that was a healing, it is changed,

  My name is a consuming. From this time,

  Though mine eyes reach to the end of all these things,

  My lips shall not unfasten till I die.

  SEMICHORUS

  She has filled with sighing the city,

  And the ways thereof with tears;

  1950

  She arose, she girdled her sides,

  She set her face as a bride’s;

  She wept, and she had no pity;

  Trembled, and felt no fears.

  SEMICHORUS

  Her eyes were clear as the sun,

  Her brows were fresh as the day;

  She girdled herself with gold,

  Her robes were manifold;

  But the days of her worship are done,

  Her praise is taken away.

  SEMICHORUS

  1960

  For she set her hand to the fire,

  With her mouth she kindled the same;

  As the mouth of a flute-player,

  So was the mouth of her;

  With the might of her strong desire

  She blew the breath of the flame.

  SEMICHORUS

  She set her hand to the wood,

  She took the fire in her hand;

  As one who is nigh to death,

  She panted with strange breath;

  1970

  She opened her lips unto blood,

  She breathed and kindled the brand.

  SEMICHORUS

  As a wood-dove newly shot,

  She sobbed and lifted her breast;

  She sighed and covered her eyes,

  Filling her lips with sighs;


  She sighed, she withdrew herself not,

  She refrained not, taking not rest;

  SEMICHORUS

  But as the wind which is drouth,

  And as the air which is death,

  1980

  As storm that severeth ships,

  Her breath severing her lips,

  The breath came forth of her mouth

  And the fire came forth of her breath.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  Queen, and you maidens, there is come on us

  A thing more deadly than the face of death;

  Meleager the good lord is as one slain.

  SEMICHORUS

  Without sword, without sword is he stricken;

  Slain, and slain without hand.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  For as keen ice divided of the sun

  1990

  His limbs divide, and as thawed snow the flesh

  Thaws from off all his body to the hair.

  SEMICHORUS

  He wastes as the embers quicken;

  With the brand he fades as a brand.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  Even while they sang and all drew hither and he

  Lifted both hands to crown the Arcadian’s hair

  And fix the looser leaves, both hands fell down.

  SEMICHORUS

  With rending of cheek and of hair

  Lament ye, mourn for him, weep.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  Straightway the crown slid off and smote on earth,

  2000

  First fallen; and he, grasping his own hair, groaned

  And cast his raiment round his face and fell.

  SEMICHORUS

  Alas for visions that were,

  And soothsayings spoken in sleep.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  But the king twitched his reins in and leapt down

  And caught him, crying out twice ‘O child’ and thrice,

  So that men’s eyelids thickened with their tears.

  SEMICHORUS

  Lament with a long lamentation,

  Cry, for an end is at hand.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  O son, he said, son, lift thine eyes, draw breath,

  2010

  Pity me; but Meleager with sharp lips

  Gasped, and his face waxed like as sunburnt grass.

  SEMICHORUS

  Cry aloud, O thou kingdom, O nation,

  O stricken, a ruinous land.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  Whereat king Œneus, straightening feeble knees,

  With feeble hands heaved up a lessening weight,

  And laid him sadly in strange hands, and wept.

  SEMICHORUS

  Thou art smitten, her lord, her desire,

  Thy dear blood wasted as rain.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  And they with tears and rendings of the beard

  2020

  Bear hither a breathing body, wept upon

  And lightening at each footfall, sick to death.

  SEMICHORUS

  Thou madest thy sword as a fire,

  With fire for a sword thou art slain.

  SECOND MESSENGER

  And lo, the feast turned funeral, and the crowns

  Fallen; and the huntress and the hunter trapped;

  And weeping and changed faces and veiled hair.

  MELEAGER

  Let your hands meet

  Round the weight of my head;

  Lift ye my feet

  2030

  As the feet of the dead;

  For the flesh of my body is molten, the limbs of it molten as lead.

  CHORUS

  O thy luminous face,

  Thine imperious eyes!

  O the grief, O the grace,

  As of day when it dies!

  Who is this bending over thee, lord, with tears and suppression of sighs?

  MELEAGER

  Is a bride so fair?

  Is a maid so meek?

  With unchapleted hair,

  2040

  With unfilleted cheek,

  Atalanta, the pure among women, whose name is as blessing to speak.

  ATALANTA

  I would that with feet

  Unsandalled, unshod,

  Overbold, overfleet,

  I had swum not nor trod

  From Arcadia to Calydon northward, a blast of the envy of God.

  MELEAGER

  Unto each man his fate;

  Unto each as he saith

  In whose fingers the weight

  2050

  Of the world is as breath;

  Yet I would that in clamour of battle mine hands had laid hold upon death.

  CHORUS

  Not with cleaving of shields

  And their clash in thine ear,

  When the lord of fought fields

  Breaketh spearshaft from spear,

  Thou art broken, our lord, thou art broken, with travail and labour and fear.

  MELEAGER

  Would God he had found me

  Beneath fresh boughs!

  Would God he had bound me

  2060

  Unawares in mine house,

  With light in mine eyes, and songs in my lips, and a crown on my brows!

  CHORUS

  Whence art thou sent from us?

  Whither thy goal?

  How art thou rent from us,

  Thou that wert whole,

  As with severing of eyelids and eyes, as with sundering of body and soul!

  MELEAGER

  My heart is within me

  As an ash in the fire;

  Whosoever hath seen me,

  2070

  Without lute, without lyre,

  Shall sing of me grievous things, even things that were ill to desire.

  CHORUS

  Who shall raise thee

  From the house of the dead?

  Or what man praise thee

  That thy praise may be said?

  Alas thy beauty! alas thy body! alas thine head!

  MELEAGER

  But thou, O mother,

  The dreamer of dreams,

  Wilt thou bring forth another

  2080

  To feel the sun’s beams

  When I move among shadows a shadow, and wail by impassable streams?

  ŒNEUS

  What thing wilt thou leave me

  Now this thing is done?

  A man wilt thou give me,

  A son for my son,

  For the light of mine eyes, the desire of my life, the desirable one?

  CHORUS

  Thou wert glad above others,

  Yea, fair beyond word;

  Thou wert glad among mothers;

  2090

  For each man that heard

  Of thee, praise there was added unto thee, as wings to the feet of a bird.

 

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