Algernon Charles Swinburne
¶[1837-1909]
735 Chorus from 'atalanta'
¶WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,The mother of months in meadow or plainFills the shadows and windy placesWith lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;[1200]And the brown bright nightingale amorousIs half assuaged for Itylus,For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.
¶Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,Maiden most perfect, lady of light,With a noise of winds and many rivers,With a clamour of waters, and with might;Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,Over the splendour and speed of thy feet;For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.
¶Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!For the stars and the winds are unto herAs raiment, as songs of the harp-player;For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.
¶For winter's rains and ruins are over,And all the season of snows and sins;The days dividing lover and lover,The light that loses, the night that wins;And time remember'd is grief forgotten,And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,And in green underwood and coverBlossom by blossom the spring begins.
¶The full streams feed on flower of rushes,Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,The faint fresh flame of the young year flushesFrom leaf to flower and flower to fruit;And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,And the oat is heard above the lyre,And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushesThe chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.[1201]And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,Follows with dancing and fills with delightThe Maenad and the Bassarid;And soft as lips that laugh and hideThe laughing leaves of the trees divide,And screen from seeing and leave in sightThe god pursuing, the maiden hid.
¶The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hairOver her eyebrows hiding her eyes;The wild vine slipping down leaves bareHer bright breast shortening into sighs;The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,But the berried ivy catches and cleavesTo the limbs that glitter, the feet that scareThe wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.
Itylus
¶SWALLOW, my sister, O sister swallow,How can thine heart be full of the spring?A thousand summers are over and dead.What hast thou found in the spring to follow?What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?
¶O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,The soft south whither thine heart is set?Shall not the grief of the old time follow?Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?
¶Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,Thy way is long to the sun and the south;But I, fulfill'd of my heart's desire,Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,From tawny body and sweet small mouthFeed the heart of the night with fire.[1202]I the nightingale all spring through,0 swallow, sister, O changing swallow,All spring through till the spring be done,Clothed with the light of the night on the dew,Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow,Take flight and follow and find the sun.
¶Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber,How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?For where thou fliest I shall not follow,Till life forget and death remember,Till thou remember and I forget.
¶Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,I know not how thou hast heart to sing.Hast thou the heart? is it all past over?Thy lord the summer is good to follow,And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?
¶O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow,My heart in me is a molten emberAnd over my head the waves have met.But thou wouldst tarry or I would followCould I forget or thou remember,Couldst thou remember and I forget.
¶O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,The heart's division divideth us.Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollowTo the place of the slaying of Itylus,The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.
¶O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,I pray thee sing not a little space.Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?The woven web that was plain to follow,The small slain body, the flower-like face,Can I remember if thou forget?[1203]O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!The hands that cling and the feet that follow,The voice of the child's blood crying yet,Who hath remember'd me? who hath forgotten?Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,But the world shall end when I forget.
7j7 the Garden of Proserpine
¶HERE, where the world is quiet,Here, where all trouble seemsDead winds' and spent waves' riotIn doubtful dreams of dreams;I watch the green field growingFor reaping folk and sowing,For harvest time and mowing,A sleepy world of streams.
¶I am tired of tears and laughter,And men that laugh and weepOf what may come hereafterFor men that sow to reap:I am weary of days and hours,Blown buds of barren flowers,Desires and dreams and powersAnd everything but sleep.
¶Here life has death for neighbor,And far from eye or earWan waves and wet winds labor,Weak ships and spirits steer;They drive adrift, and whitherThey wot not who make thither;But no such winds blow hither,And no such things grow here.
¶No growth of moor or coppice,No heather-flower or vine,But bloomless buds of poppies,Green grapes of Proserpine,[1204]Pale beds of blowing rushesWhere no leaf blooms or blushes,Save this whereout she crushesFor dead men deadly wine.
¶Pale, without name or number,In fruitless fields of corn,They bow themselves and slumberAll night till light is born;And like a soul belated,In hell and heaven unmated,By cloud and mist abatedComes out of darkness morn.
¶Though one were strong as seven,He too with death shall dwell,Nor wake with wings in heaven,Nor weep for pains in hell;Though one were fair as roses,His beauty clouds and closes;And well though love reposes,In the end it is not well.
¶Pale, beyond porch and portal,Crowned with calm leaves, she standsWho gathers all things mortalWith cold immortal hands;Her languid lips are sweeterThan love's who fears to greet herTo men that mix and meet herFrom many times and lands.
¶She waits for each and other,She waits for all men born;Forgets the earth her mother,The life of fruits and corn;And spring and seed and swallowTake wing for her and followWhere summer song rings hollowAnd flowers are put to scorn.[1205]There go the loves that wither,The old loves with wearier wings;And all dead years draw thither,And all disastrous things;Dead dreams of days forsakenBlind buds that snows have shaken,Wild leaves that winds have taken,Red strays of ruined springs.
¶We are not sure of sorrow,And joy was never sure;To-day will die to-morrowTime stoops to no man's lure;And love, grown faint and fretfulWith lips but half regretfulSighs, and with eyes forgetfulWeeps that no loves endure.
¶From too much love of living,From hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.
¶Then star nor sun shall waken,Nor any change of light:Nor sound of waters shaken,Nor any sound or sight:Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,Nor days nor things diurnal;Only the sleep eternalIn an eternal night.
73$ a Match
¶IF love were what the rose is,And I were like the leaf,Our lives would grow together[1206]In sad or singing weather,Blown fields or flowerful closes,Green pleasure or gray grief;If love were what the rose is,And I were like the leaf.
¶If I were what the words are,And love were like the tune,With double sound and singleDelight our lips would mingle,With kisses glad as birds areThat get sweet rain at noon;If I were what the words areAnd love were like the tune.
¶If you were life, my darling,And I your love were death,We'd shine and snow togetherEre March made sweet the weatherWith daffodil and starlingAnd hours of fruitful breath;If you were life, my darling,And I your love were death.
¶If you were thrall to sorrow,And I were page to joy,We'd play for lives and seasonsWith loving looks and treasonsAnd tears of night and morrowAnd laughs of maid and boy;If you were thrall to sorrow,And I were page to joy.
¶If you were April's lady,And I were lord in May,We'd throw with leaves for hoursAnd draw for days with flowers,Till day like night were shadyAnd night were bright like day;If you were April's lady,And I were lord in May.[1207]If you were queen of pleasure,And I were king of pain,We'd hunt down love together,Pluck out his flying-feather,And teach his feet a measure,And find his mouth a rein;If you were queen of pleasure.And I were king of pain.
759 a Forsaken Garden
¶IN a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,Walled round with rocks as an inland island,The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.A girdle of brushwood and thorn enclosesThe steep square slope of the blossomless bedWhere the weeds that grew green from the graves of its rosesNow lie dead.
¶The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,To the low last edge of the long lone land.If a step should sound or a word be spoken,Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand?So long have the gray bare walks lain guestless,Through branches and briars if a man make way,He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, resdessNight and day.
¶The dense hard passage is blind and stifledThat crawls by a track none turn to climbTo the strait waste place that the years have rifledOf all but the thorns that are touched not of time.The thorns he spares when the rose is taken;The rocks are left when he wastes the plain;The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,These remain.
¶Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not;As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry;From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not,Could she call, there were never a rose to reply.[1208]Over the meadows that blossom and wither,Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song.Only the sun and the rain come hitherAll year long.
¶The sun burns sear, and the rain dishevelsOne gaunt bleak, blossom of scentless breath.Only the wind here hovers and revelsIn a round where life seems barren as death.Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping,Haply, of lovers none ever will know,Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleepingYears ago.
¶Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither,"Did he whisper? "Look forth from the flowers to the sea;For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,And men that love lightly may die—But we?"And the same wind sang, and the same waves whitened,And or ever the garden's last petals were shed,In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,Love was dead.
¶Or they loved their life through, and then went whither?And were one to the end—but what end who knows?Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them?What love was ever as deep as a grave?They are loveless now as the grass above themOr the wave.
¶All are at one now, roses and lovers,Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea.Not a breath of the time that has been hoversIn the air now soft with a summer to be.Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafterOf the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,When, as they that are free now of weeping and laughter,We shall sleep.[1209]Here death may deal not again forever;Here change may come not till all change end.From the graves they have made they shall rise up never;Who have left naught living to ravage and rend.Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,When the sun and the rain live, these shall be;Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowingRoll the sea.
¶Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humbleThe fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,Here now in his triumph where all things falter,Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,Death lies dead.