Algernon Charles Swinburne

I Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight, The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight; The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night, Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made, March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite. II And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow, And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low, How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that exults to be born So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness whose laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn? Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow As a lover's that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and tresses yet wasted and torn, Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her spirit the sense of thee flow. III Fain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the wind and the sun have dispelled and consumed, Those full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose luminous burden the branches implumed Hung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not as birds are, but petalled as flowers, Each tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and carved, or a fountain that shines as it showers, But fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to last till by time or by tempest entombed, As a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of its doom is no more than an hour's, One hour of the sun's when the warm wind wakes him to wither the snow-flowers that froze as they bloomed. IV As the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April subdues thee, and yields up his kingdom to May; So time overcomes the regret that is born of delight as it passes in passion away, And leaves but a dream for desire to rejoice in or mourn for with tears or thanksgivings; but thou, Bright god that art gone from us, maddest and gladdest of months, to what goal hast thou gone from us now? For somewhere surely the storm of thy laughter that lightens, the beat of thy wings that play, Must flame as a fire through the world, and the heavens that we know not rejoice in thee: surely thy brow Hath lost not its radiance of empire, thy spirit the joy that impelled it on quest as for prey. V Are thy feet on the ways of the limitless waters, thy wings on the winds of the waste north sea? Are the fires of the false north dawn over heavens where summer is stormful and strong like thee Now bright in the sight of thine eyes? are the bastions of icebergs assailed by the blast of thy breath? Is it March with the wild north world when April is waning? the word that the changed year saith, Is it echoed to northward with rapture of passion reiterate from spirits triumphant as we Whose hearts were uplift at the blast of thy clarions as men's rearisen from a sleep that was death And kindled to life that was one with the world's and with thine? hast thou set not the whole world free? VI For the breath of thy lips is freedom, and freedom's the sense of thy spirit, the sound of thy song, Glad god of the north-east wind, whose heart is as high as the hands of thy kingdom are strong, Thy kingdom whose empire is terror and joy, twin-featured and fruitful of births divine, Days lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers, and nights that are drunken with dew for wine, And sleep not for joy of the stars that deepen and quicken, a denser and fierier throng, And the world that thy breath bade whiten and tremble rejoices at heart as they strengthen and shine, And earth gives thanks for the glory bequeathed her, and knows of thy reign that it wrought not wrong. VII Thy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face in the crown of the steep sky's arch, And the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise of the thorn and the larch: Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the wildest of winds that blow, Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow, And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live woods feel not the frost's flame parch; For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt at the heart of the forest aglow, And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands of the gods of the winds of March.

Lying asleep between the strokes of night I saw my love lean over my sad bed, Pale as the duskiest lily’s leaf or head, Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite, Too wan for blushing and too warm for white, But perfect-coloured without white or red. And her lips opened amorously, and said – I wist not what, saving one word – Delight. And all her face was honey to my mouth, And all her body pasture to mine eyes; The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire, The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south, The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs And glittering eyelids of my soul’s desire.

Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear. Let us go hence together without fear; Keep silence now, for singing-time is over, And over all old things and all things dear. She loves not you nor me as all we love her. Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear, She would not hear. Let us rise up and part; she will not know. Let us go seaward as the great winds go, Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here? There is no help, for all these things are so, And all the world is bitter as a tear. And how these things are, though ye strove to show, She would not know. Let us go home and hence; she will not weep. We gave love many dreams and days to keep, Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow, Saying 'If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle and reap.' All is reaped now; no grass is left to mow; And we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep, She would not weep. Let us go hence and rest; she will not love. She shall not hear us if we sing hereof, Nor see love's ways, how sore they are and steep. Come hence, let be, lie still; it is enough. Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep; And though she saw all heaven in flower above, She would not love. Let us give up, go down; she will not care. Though all the stars made gold of all the air, And the sea moving saw before it move One moon-flower making all the foam-flowers fair; Though all those waves went over us, and drove Deep down the stifling lips and drowning hair, She would not care. Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see. Sing all once more together; surely she, She too, remembering days and words that were, Will turn a little toward us, sighing; but we, We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there. Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me, She would not see.

Lors dit en plourant; Hélas trop malheureux homme et mauldict pescheur, oncques ne verrai-je clémence et miséricorde de Dieu. Ores m'en irai-je d'icy et me cacherai dedans le mont Horsel, en requérant de faveur et d'amoureuse merci ma doulce dame Vénus, car pour son amour serai-je bien à tout jamais damné en enfer. Voicy la fin de tous mes faicts d'armes et de toutes mes belles chansons. Hélas, trop belle estoyt la face de ma dame et ses yeulx, et en mauvais jour je vis ces chouses-là . Lors s'en alla tout en gémissant et se retourna chez elle, et là vescut tristement en grand amour près de sa dame. Puis après advint que le pape vit un jour esclater sur son baston force belles fleurs rouges et blanches et maints boutons de feuilles, et ainsi vit-il reverdir toute l'escorce. Ce dont il eut grande crainte et moult s'en esmut, et grande pitié lui prit de ce chevalier qui s'en estoyt départi sans espoir comme un homme misérable et damné. Doncques envoya force messaigers devers luy pour le ramener, disant qu'il aurait de Dieu grace et bonne absolution de son grand pesché d'amour. Mais oncques plus ne le virent; car toujours demeura ce pauvre chevalier auprès de Vénus la haulte et forte déesse ès flancs de la montagne amoureuse. Livre des grandes merveilles d'amour, escript en latin et en françoys par Maistre Antoine Gaget. 1530. Asleep or waking is it? for her neck, Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out; Soft, and stung softly — fairer for a fleck. But though my lips shut sucking on the place, There is no vein at work upon her face; Her eyelids are so peaceable, no doubt Deep sleep has warmed her blood through all its ways. Lo, this is she that was the world's delight; The old grey years were parcels of her might; The strewings of the ways wherein she trod Were the twain seasons of the day and night. Lo, she was thus when her clear limbs enticed All lips that now grow sad with kissing Christ, Stained with blood fallen from the feet of God, The feet and hands whereat our souls were priced. Alas, Lord, surely thou art great and fair. But lo her wonderfully woven hair! And thou didst heal us with thy piteous kiss; But see now, Lord; her mouth is lovelier. She is right fair; what hath she done to thee? Nay, fair Lord Christ, lift up thine eyes and see; Had now thy mother such a lip — like this? Thou knowest how sweet a thing it is to me. Inside the Horsel here the air is hot; Right little peace one hath for it, God wot; The scented dusty daylight burns the air, And my heart chokes me till I hear it not. Behold, my Venus, my soul's body, lies With my love laid upon her garment-wise, Feeling my love in all her limbs and hair And shed between her eyelids through her eyes. She holds my heart in her sweet open hands Hanging asleep; hard by her head there stands, Crowned with gilt thorns and clothed with flesh like fire, Love, wan as foam blown up the salt burnt sands — Hot as the brackish waifs of yellow spume That shift and steam — loose clots of arid fume From the sea's panting mouth of dry desire; There stands he, like one labouring at a loom. The warp holds fast across; and every thread That makes the woof up has dry specks of red; Always the shuttle cleaves clean through, and he Weaves with the hair of many a ruined head. Love is not glad nor sorry, as I deem; Labouring he dreams, and labours in the dream, Till when the spool is finished, lo I see His web, reeled off, curls and goes out like steam. Night falls like fire; the heavy lights run low, And as they drop, my blood and body so Shake as the flame shakes, full of days and hours That sleep not neither weep they as they go. Ah yet would God this flesh of mine might be Where air might wash and long leaves cover me, Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea. Ah yet would God that stems and roots were bred Out of my weary body and my head, That sleep were sealed upon me with a seal, And I were as the least of all his dead. Would God my blood were dew to feed the grass, Mine ears made deaf and mine eyes blind as glass, My body broken as a turning wheel, And my mouth stricken ere it saith Alas! Ah God, that love were as a flower or flame, That life were as the naming of a name, That death were not more pitiful than desire, That these things were not one thing and the same! Behold now, surely somewhere there is death: For each man hath some space of years, he saith, A little space of time ere time expire, A little day, a little way of breath. And lo, between the sundawn and the sun, His day's work and his night's work are undone; And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one. Ah God, that I were as all souls that be, As any herb or leaf of any tree, As men that toil through hours of labouring night, As bones of men under the deep sharp sea. Outside it must be winter among men; For at the gold bars of the gates again I heard all night and all the hours of it The wind's wet wings and fingers drip with rain. Knights gather, riding sharp for cold; I know The ways and woods are strangled with the snow; And with short song the maidens spin and sit Until Christ's birthnight, lily-like, arow. The scent and shadow shed about me make The very soul in all my senses ache; The hot hard night is fed upon my breath, And sleep beholds me from afar awake. Alas, but surely where the hills grow deep, Or where the wild ways of the sea are steep, Or in strange places somewhere there is death, And on death's face the scattered hair of sleep. There lover-like with lips and limbs that meet They lie, they pluck sweet fruit of life and eat; But me the hot and hungry days devour, And in my mouth no fruit of theirs is sweet. No fruit of theirs, but fruit of my desire, For her love's sake whose lips through mine respire; Her eyelids on her eyes like flower on flower, Mine eyelids on mine eyes like fire on fire. So lie we, not as sleep that lies by death, With heavy kisses and with happy breath; Not as man lies by woman, when the bride Laughs low for love's sake and the words he saith. For she lies, laughing low with love; she lies And turns his kisses on her lips to sighs, To sighing sound of lips unsatisfied, And the sweet tears are tender with her eyes. Ah, not as they, but as the souls that were Slain in the old time, having found her fair; Who, sleeping with her lips upon their eyes, Heard sudden serpents hiss across her hair. Their blood runs round the roots of time like rain: She casts them forth and gathers them again; With nerve and bone she weaves and multiplies Exceeding pleasure out of extreme pain. Her little chambers drip with flower-like red, Her girdles, and the chaplets of her head, Her armlets and her anklets; with her feet She tramples all that winepress of the dead. Her gateways smoke with fume of flowers and fires, With loves burnt out and unassuaged desires; Between her lips the steam of them is sweet, The languor in her ears of many lyres. Her beds are full of perfume and sad sound, Her doors are made with music, and barred round With sighing and with laughter and with tears, With tears whereby strong souls of men are bound. There is the knight Adonis that was slain; With flesh and blood she chains him for a chain; The body and the spirit in her ears Cry, for her lips divide him vein by vein. Yea, all she slayeth; yea, every man save me; Me, love, thy lover that must cleave to thee Till the ending of the days and ways of earth, The shaking of the sources of the sea. Me, most forsaken of all souls that fell; Me, satiated with things insatiable; Me, for whose sake the extreme hell makes mirth, Yea, laughter kindles at the heart of hell. Alas thy beauty! for thy mouth's sweet sake My soul is bitter to me, my limbs quake As water, as the flesh of men that weep, As their heart's vein whose heart goes nigh to break. Ah God, that sleep with flower-sweet finger-tips Would crush the fruit of death upon my lips; Ah God, that death would tread the grapes of sleep And wring their juice upon me as it drips. There is no change of cheer for many days, But change of chimes high up in the air, that sways Rung by the running fingers of the wind; And singing sorrows heard on hidden ways. Day smiteth day in twain, night sundereth night, And on mine eyes the dark sits as the light; Yea, Lord, thou knowest I know not, having sinned, If heaven be clean or unclean in thy sight. Yea, as if earth were sprinkled over me, Such chafed harsh earth as chokes a sandy sea, Each pore doth yearn, and the dried blood thereof Gasps by sick fits, my heart swims heavily, There is a feverish famine in my veins; Below her bosom, where a crushed grape stains The white and blue, there my lips caught and clove An hour since, and what mark of me remains? I dare not always touch her, lest the kiss Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss, Brief bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin; Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is. Sin, is it sin whereby men's souls are thrust Into the pit? yet had I a good trust To save my soul before it slipped therein, Trod under by the fire-shod feet of lust. For if mine eyes fail and my soul takes breath, I look between the iron sides of death Into sad hell where all sweet love hath end, All but the pain that never finisheth. There are the naked faces of great kings, The singing folk with all their lute-playings; There when one cometh he shall have to friend The grave that covets and the worm that clings. There sit the knights that were so great of hand, The ladies that were queens of fair green land, Grown grey and black now, brought unto the dust, Soiled, without raiment, clad about with sand. There is one end for all of them; they sit Naked and sad, they drink the dregs of it, Trodden as grapes in the wine-press of lust, Trampled and trodden by the fiery feet. I see the marvellous mouth whereby there fell Cities and people whom the gods loved well, Yet for her sake on them the fire gat hold, And for their sakes on her the fire of hell. And softer than the Egyptian lote-leaf is, The queen whose face was worth the world to kiss, Wearing at breast a suckling snake of gold; And large pale lips of strong Semiramis, Curled like a tiger's that curl back to feed; Red only where the last kiss made them bleed; Her hair most thick with many a carven gem, Deep in the mane, great-chested, like a steed. Yea, with red sin the faces of them shine; But in all these there was no sin like mine; No, not in all the strange great sins of them That made the wine-press froth and foam with wine. For I was of Christ's choosing, I God's knight, No blinkard heathen stumbling for scant light; I can well see, for all the dusty days Gone past, the clean great time of goodly fight. I smell the breathing battle sharp with blows, With shriek of shafts and snapping short of bows; The fair pure sword smites out in subtle ways, Sounds and long lights are shed between the rows Of beautiful mailed men; the edged light slips, Most like a snake that takes short breath and dips Sharp from the beautifully bending head, With all its gracious body lithe as lips That curl in touching you; right in this wise My sword doth, seeming fire in mine own eyes, Leaving all colours in them brown and red And flecked with death; then the keen breaths like sighs, The caught-up choked dry laughters following them, When all the fighting face is grown a flame For pleasure, and the pulse that stuns the ears, And the heart's gladness of the goodly game. Let me think yet a little; I do know These things were sweet, but sweet such years ago, Their savour is all turned now into tears; Yea, ten years since, where the blue ripples blow, The blue curled eddies of the blowing Rhine, I felt the sharp wind shaking grass and vine Touch my blood too, and sting me with delight Through all this waste and weary body of mine That never feels clear air; right gladly then I rode alone, a great way off my men, And heard the chiming bridle smite and smite, And gave each rhyme thereof some rhyme again, Till my song shifted to that iron one; Seeing there rode up between me and the sun Some certain of my foe's men, for his three White wolves across their painted coats did run. The first red-bearded, with square cheeks — alack, I made my knave's blood turn his beard to black; The slaying of him was a joy to see: Perchance too, when at night he came not back, Some woman fell a-weeping, whom this thief Would beat when he had drunken; yet small grief Hath any for the ridding of such knaves; Yea, if one wept, I doubt her teen was brief. This bitter love is sorrow in all lands, Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands, Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves; A sign across the head of the world he stands, An one that hath a plague-mark on his brows; Dust and spilt blood do track him to his house Down under earth; sweet smells of lip and cheek, Like a sweet snake's breath made more poisonous With chewing of some perfumed deadly grass, Are shed all round his passage if he pass, And their quenched savour leaves the whole soul weak, Sick with keen guessing whence the perfume was. As one who hidden in deep sedge and reeds Smells the rare scent made where a panther feeds, And tracking ever slotwise the warm smell Is snapped upon by the sweet mouth and bleeds, His head far down the hot sweet throat of her — So one tracks love, whose breath is deadlier, And lo, one springe and you are fast in hell, Fast as the gin's grip of a wayfarer. I think now, as the heavy hours decease One after one, and bitter thoughts increase One upon one, of all sweet finished things; The breaking of the battle; the long peace Wherein we sat clothed softly, each man's hair Crowned with green leaves beneath white hoods of vair; The sounds of sharp spears at great tourneyings, And noise of singing in the late sweet air. I sang of love too, knowing nought thereof; "Sweeter," I said, "the little laugh of love Than tears out of the eyes of Magdalen, Or any fallen feather of the Dove. "The broken little laugh that spoils a kiss, The ache of purple pulses, and the bliss Of blinded eyelids that expand again — Love draws them open with those lips of his, "Lips that cling hard till the kissed face has grown Of one same fire and colour with their own; Then ere one sleep, appeased with sacrifice, Where his lips wounded, there his lips atone." I sang these things long since and knew them not; "Lo, here is love, or there is love, God wot, This man and that finds favour in his eyes," I said, "but I, what guerdon have I got? "The dust of praise that is blown everywhere In all men's faces with the common air; The bay-leaf that wants chafing to be sweet Before they wind it in a singer's hair." So that one dawn I rode forth sorrowing; I had no hope but of some evil thing, And so rode slowly past the windy wheat And past the vineyard and the water-spring, Up to the Horsel. A great elder-tree Held back its heaps of flowers to let me see The ripe tall grass, and one that walked therein, Naked, with hair shed over to the knee. She walked between the blossom and the grass; I knew the beauty of her, what she was, The beauty of her body and her sin, And in my flesh the sin of hers, alas! Alas! for sorrow is all the end of this. O sad kissed mouth, how sorrowful it is! O breast whereat some suckling sorrow clings, Red with the bitter blossom of a kiss! Ah, with blind lips I felt for you, and found About my neck your hands and hair enwound, The hands that stifle and the hair that stings, I felt them fasten sharply without sound. Yea, for my sin I had great store of bliss: Rise up, make answer for me, let thy kiss Seal my lips hard from speaking of my sin, Lest one go mad to hear how sweet it is. Yet I waxed faint with fume of barren bowers, And murmuring of the heavy-headed hours; And let the dove's beak fret and peck within My lips in vain, and Love shed fruitless flowers. So that God looked upon me when your hands Were hot about me; yea, God brake my bands To save my soul alive, and I came forth Like a man blind and naked in strange lands That hears men laugh and weep, and knows not whence Nor wherefore, but is broken in his sense; Howbeit I met folk riding from the north Towards Rome, to purge them of their souls' offence, And rode with them, and spake to none; the day Stunned me like lights upon some wizard way, And ate like fire mine eyes and mine eyesight; So rode I, hearing all these chant and pray, And marvelled; till before us rose and fell White cursed hills, like outer skirts of hell Seen where men's eyes look through the day to night, Like a jagged shell's lips, harsh, untunable, Blown in between by devils' wrangling breath; Nathless we won well past that hell and death, Down to the sweet land where all airs are good, Even unto Rome where God's grace tarrieth. Then came each man and worshipped at his knees Who in the Lord God's likeness bears the keys To bind or loose, and called on Christ's shed blood, And so the sweet-souled father gave him ease. But when I came I fell down at his feet, Saying, "Father, though the Lord's blood be right sweet, The spot it takes not off the panther's skin, Nor shall an Ethiop's stain be bleached with it. "Lo, I have sinned and have spat out at God, Wherefore his hand is heavier and his rod More sharp because of mine exceeding sin, And all his raiment redder than bright blood "Before mine eyes; yea, for my sake I wot The heat of hell is waxen seven times hot Through my great sin." Then spake he some sweet word, Giving me cheer; which thing availed me not; Yea, scarce I wist if such indeed were said; For when I ceased — lo, as one newly dead Who hears a great cry out of hell, I heard The crying of his voice across my head. "Until this dry shred staff, that hath no whit Of leaf nor bark, bear blossom and smell sweet, Seek thou not any mercy in God's sight, For so long shalt thou be cast out from it." Yea, what if dried-up stems wax red and green, Shall that thing be which is not nor has been? Yea, what if sapless bark wax green and white, Shall any good fruit grow upon my sin? Nay, though sweet fruit were plucked of a dry tree, And though men drew sweet waters of the sea, There should not grow sweet leaves on this dead stem, This waste wan body and shaken soul of me. Yea, though God search it warily enough, There is not one sound thing in all thereof; Though he search all my veins through, searching them He shall find nothing whole therein but love. For I came home right heavy, with small cheer, And lo my love, mine own soul's heart, more dear Than mine own soul, more beautiful than God, Who hath my being between the hands of her — Fair still, but fair for no man saving me, As when she came out of the naked sea Making the foam as fire whereon she trod, And as the inner flower of fire was she. Yea, she laid hold upon me, and her mouth Clove unto mine as soul to body doth, And, laughing, made her lips luxurious; Her hair had smells of all the sunburnt south, Strange spice and flower, strange savour of crushed fruit, And perfume the swart kings tread underfoot For pleasure when their minds wax amorous, Charred frankincense and grated sandal-root. And I forgot fear and all weary things, All ended prayers and perished thanksgivings, Feeling her face with all her eager hair Cleave to me, clinging as a fire that clings To the body and to the raiment, burning them; As after death I know that such-like flame Shall cleave to me for ever; yea, what care, Albeit I burn then, having felt the same? Ah love, there is no better life than this; To have known love, how bitter a thing it is, And afterward be cast out of God's sight; Yea, these that know not, shall they have such bliss High up in barren heaven before his face As we twain in the heavy-hearted place, Remembering love and all the dead delight, And all that time was sweet with for a space? For till the thunder in the trumpet be, Soul may divide from body, but not we One from another; I hold thee with my hand, I let mine eyes have all their will of thee, I seal myself upon thee with my might, Abiding alway out of all men's sight Until God loosen over sea and land The thunder of the trumpets of the night.

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, fulfilled of my heart's desire, Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow, From tawny body and sweet small mouth Feed the heart of the night with fire. I the nightingale all spring through, O 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 ember And over my head the waves have met. But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow, Could 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 hollow To 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 flowerlike face, Can I remember if thou forget? 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 remembered me? who hath forgotten? Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow, But the world shall end when I forget.

Leave go my hands, let me catch breath and see; Let the dew-fall drench either side of me; Clear apple-leaves are soft upon that moon Seen sidelong like a blossom in the tree; And God, ah God, that day should be so soon. The grass is thick and cool, it lets us lie. Kissed upon either cheek and either eye, I turn to thee as some green afternoon Turns toward sunset, and is loth to die; Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon. Lie closer, lean your face upon my side, Feel where the dew fell that has hardly dried, Hear how the blood beats that went nigh to swoon; The pleasure lives there when the sense has died, Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon. O my fair lord, I charge you leave me this: It is not sweeter than a foolish kiss? Nay take it then, my flower, my first in June, My rose, so like a tender mouth it is: Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon. Love, till dawn sunder night from day with fire Dividing my delight and my desire, The crescent life and love the plenilune, Love me though dusk begin and dark retire; Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon. Ah, my heart fails, my blood draws back; I know, When life runs over, life is near to go; And with the slain of love love’s ways are strewn, And with their blood, if love will have it so; Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon. Ah, do thy will now; slay me if thou wilt; There is no building now the walls are built, No quarrying now the corner-stone is hewn, No drinking now the vine’s whole blood is spilt; Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon. Nay, slay me now; nay, for I will be slain; Pluck thy red pleasure from the teeth of pain, Break down thy vine ere yet grape-gatherers prune, Slay me ere day can slay desire again; Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon. Yea, with thy sweet lips, with thy sweet sword; yea Take life and all, for I will die, I say; Love, I gave love, is life a better boon? For sweet night’s sake I will not live till day; Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon. Nay, I will sleep then only; nay, but go. Ah sweet, too sweet to me, my sweet, I know Love, sleep, and death go to the sweet same tune; Hold my hair fast, and kiss me through it soon. Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.

I Beyond the hollow sunset, ere a star Take heart in heaven from eastward, while the west, Fulfilled of watery resonance and rest, Is as a port with clouds for harbour bar To fold the fleet in of the winds from far That stir no plume now of the bland sea's breast: II Above the soft sweep of the breathless bay Southwestward, far past flight of night and day, Lower than the sunken sunset sinks, and higher Than dawn can freak the front of heaven with fire, My thought with eyes and wings made wide makes way To find the place of souls that I desire. III If any place for any soul there be, Disrobed and disentrammelled; if the might, The fire and force that filled with ardent light The souls whose shadow is half the light we see, Survive and be suppressed not of the night; This hour should show what all day hid from me. IV Night knows not, neither is it shown to day, By sunlight nor by starlight is it shown, Nor to the full moon's eye nor footfall known, Their world's untrodden and unkindled way. Nor is the breath nor music of it blown With sounds of winter or with winds of May. V But here, where light and darkness reconciled Held earth between them as a weanling child Between the balanced hands of death and birth, Even as they held the new-born shape of earth When first life trembled in her limbs and smiled, Here hope might think to find what hope were worth. VI Past Hades, past Elysium, past the long Slow smooth strong lapse of Lethe—past the toil Wherein all souls are taken as a spoil, The Stygian web of waters—if your song Be quenched not, O our brethren, but be strong As ere ye too shook off our temporal coil; VII If yet these twain survive your worldly breath, Joy trampling sorrow, life devouring death, If perfect life possess your life all through And like your words your souls be deathless too, To-night, of all whom night encompasseth, My soul would commune with one soul of you. VIII Above the sunset might I see thine eyes That were above the sundawn in our skies, Son of the songs of morning,—thine that were First lights to lighten that rekindling air Wherethrough men saw the front of England rise And heard thine loudest of the lyre-notes there— IX If yet thy fire have not one spark the less, O Titan, born of her a Titaness, Across the sunrise and the sunset's mark Send of thy lyre one sound, thy fire one spark, To change this face of our unworthiness, Across this hour dividing light from dark. X To change this face of our chill time, that hears No song like thine of all that crowd its ears, Of all its lights that lighten all day long Sees none like thy most fleet and fiery sphere's Outlightening Sirius—in its twilight throng No thunder and no sunrise like thy song. XI Hath not the sea-wind swept the sea-line bare To pave with stainless fire through stainless air A passage for thine heavenlier feet to tread Ungrieved of earthly floor-work? hath it spread No covering splendid as the sun-god's hair To veil or to reveal thy lordlier head? XII Hath not the sunset strewn across the sea A way majestical enough for thee? What hour save this should be thine hour—and mine, If thou have care of any less divine Than thine own soul; if thou take thought of me, Marlowe, as all my soul takes thought of thine? XIII Before the morn's face as before the sun The morning star and evening star are one For all men's lands as England. O, if night Hang hard upon us,—ere our day take flight, Shed thou some comfort from thy day long done On us pale children of the latter light! XIV For surely, brother and master and lord and king, Where'er thy footfall and thy face make spring In all souls' eyes that meet thee wheresoe'er, And have thy soul for sunshine and sweet air— Some late love of thine old live land should cling, Some living love of England, round thee there. XV Here from her shore across her sunniest sea My soul makes question of the sun for thee, And waves and beams make answer. When thy feet Made her ways flowerier and their flowers more sweet With childlike passage of a god to be, Like spray these waves cast off her foemen's fleet. XVI Like foam they flung it from her, and like weed Its wrecks were washed from scornful shoal to shoal, From rock to rock reverberate; and the whole Sea laughed and lightened with a deathless deed That sowed our enemies in her field for seed And made her shores fit harbourage for thy soul. XVII Then in her green south fields, a poor man's child, Thou hadst thy short sweet fill of half-blown joy, That ripens all of us for time to cloy With full-blown pain and passion; ere the wild World caught thee by the fiery heart, and smiled To make so swift end of the godlike boy. XVIII For thou, if ever godlike foot there trod These fields of ours, wert surely like a god. Who knows what splendour of strange dreams was shed With sacred shadow and glimmer of gold and red From hallowed windows, over stone and sod, On thine unbowed bright insubmissive head? XIX The shadow stayed not, but the splendour stays, Our brother, till the last of English days. No day nor night on English earth shall be For ever, spring nor summer, Junes nor Mays, But somewhat as a sound or gleam of thee Shall come on us like morning from the sea. XX Like sunrise never wholly risen, nor yet Quenched; or like sunset never wholly set, A light to lighten as from living eyes The cold unlit close lids of one that lies Dead, or a ray returned from death's far skies To fire us living lest our lives forget. XXI For in that heaven what light of lights may be, What splendour of what stars, what spheres of flame Sounding, that none may number nor may name, We know not, even thy brethren; yea, not we Whose eyes desire the light that lightened thee, Whose ways and thine are one way and the same. XXII But if the riddles that in sleep we read, And trust them not, be flattering truth indeed, As he that rose our mightiest called them,—he, Much higher than thou as thou much higher than we— There, might we say, all flower of all our seed, All singing souls are as one sounding sea. XXIII All those that here were of thy kind and kin, Beside thee and below thee, full of love, Full-souled for song,—and one alone above Whose only light folds all your glories in— With all birds' notes from nightingale to dove Fill the world whither we too fain would win. XXIV The world that sees in heaven the sovereign light Of sunlike Shakespeare, and the fiery night Whose stars were watched of Webster; and beneath, The twin-souled brethren of the single wreath, Grown in kings' gardens, plucked from pastoral heath, Wrought with all flowers for all men's heart's delight. XXV And that fixed fervour, iron-red like Mars, In the mid moving tide of tenderer stars, That burned on loves and deeds the darkest done, Athwart the incestuous prisoner's bride-house bars; And thine, most highest of all their fires but one, Our morning star, sole risen before the sun. XXVI And one light risen since theirs to run such race Thou hast seen, O Phosphor, from thy pride of place. Thou hast seen Shelley, him that was to thee As light to fire or dawn to lightning; me, Me likewise, O our brother, shalt thou see, And I behold thee, face to glorious face? XXVII You twain the same swift year of manhood swept Down the steep darkness, and our father wept. And from the gleam of Apollonian tears A holier aureole rounds your memories, kept Most fervent-fresh of all the singing spheres, And April-coloured through all months and years. XXVIII You twain fate spared not half your fiery span; The longer date fulfils the lesser man. Ye from beyond the dark dividing date Stand smiling, crowned as gods with foot on fate. For stronger was your blessing than his ban, And earliest whom he struck, he struck too late. XXIX Yet love and loathing, faith and unfaith yet Bind less to greater souls in unison, And one desire that makes three spirits as one Takes great and small as in one spiritual net Woven out of hope toward what shall yet be done Ere hate or love remember or forget. XXX Woven out of faith and hope and love too great To bear the bonds of life and death and fate: Woven out of love and hope and faith too dear To take the print of doubt and change and fear: And interwoven with lines of wrath and hate Blood-red with soils of many a sanguine year. XXXI Who cannot hate, can love not; if he grieve, His tears are barren as the unfruitful rain That rears no harvest from the green sea's plain, And as thorns crackling this man's laugh is vain. Nor can belief touch, kindle, smite, reprieve His heart who has not heart to disbelieve. XXXII But you, most perfect in your hate and love, Our great twin-spirited brethren; you that stand Head by head glittering, hand made fast in hand, And underfoot the fang-drawn worm that strove To wound you living; from so far above, Look love, not scorn, on ours that was your land. XXXIII For love we lack, and help and heat and light To clothe us and to comfort us with might. What help is ours to take or give? but ye— O, more than sunrise to the blind cold sea, That wailed aloud with all her waves all night, Much more, being much more glorious, should you be. XXXIV As fire to frost, as ease to toil, as dew To flowerless fields, as sleep to slackening pain, As hope to souls long weaned from hope again Returning, or as blood revived anew To dry-drawn limbs and every pulseless vein, Even so toward us should no man be but you. XXXV One rose before the sunrise was, and one Before the sunset, lovelier than the sun. And now the heaven is dark and bright and loud With wind and starry drift and moon and cloud, And night's cry rings in straining sheet and shroud, What help is ours if hope like yours be none? XXXVI O well-beloved, our brethren, if ye be, Then are we not forsaken. This kind earth Made fragrant once for all time with your birth, And bright for all men with your love, and worth The clasp and kiss and wedlock of the sea, Were not your mother if not your brethren we. XXXVII Because the days were dark with gods and kings And in time's hand the old hours of time as rods, When force and fear set hope and faith at odds, Ye failed not nor abased your plume-plucked wings; And we that front not more disastrous things, How should we fail in face of kings and gods? XXXVIII For now the deep dense plumes of night are thinned Surely with winnowing of the glimmering wind Whose feet we fledged with morning; and the breath Begins in heaven that sings the dark to death. And all the night wherein men groaned and sinned Sickens at heart to hear what sundawn saith. XXXIX O first-born sons of hope and fairest, ye Whose prows first clove the thought-unsounded sea Whence all the dark dead centuries rose to bar The spirit of man lest truth should make him free, The sunrise and the sunset, seeing one star, Take heart as we to know you that ye are. XL Ye rise not and ye set not; we that say Ye rise and set like hopes that set and rise Look yet but seaward from a land-locked bay; But where at last the sea's line is the sky's And truth and hope one sunlight in your eyes, No sunrise and no sunset marks their day.

Back to the flower-town, side by side, The bright months bring, New-born, the bridegroom and the bride, Freedom and spring. The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, Filled full of sun; All things come back to her, being free; All things but one. In many a tender wheaten plot Flowers that were dead Live, and old suns revive; but not That holier head. By this white wandering waste of sea, Far north, I hear One face shall never turn to me As once this year: Shall never smile and turn and rest On mine as there, Nor one most sacred hand be prest Upon my hair. I came as one whose thoughts half linger, Half run before; The youngest to the oldest singer That England bore. I found him whom I shall not find Till all grief end, In holiest age our mightiest mind, Father and friend. But thou, if anything endure, If hope there be, O spirit that man's life left pure, Man's death set free, Not with disdain of days that were Look earthward now; Let dreams revive the reverend hair, The imperial brow; Come back in sleep, for in the life Where thou art not We find none like thee. Time and strife And the world's lot Move thee no more; but love at least And reverent heart May move thee, royal and released, Soul, as thou art. And thou, his Florence, to thy trust Receive and keep, Keep safe his dedicated dust, His sacred sleep. So shall thy lovers, come from far, Mix with thy name As morning-star with evening-star His faultless fame.

Vicisti, Galilæe. I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end; Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend. Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep; For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep. Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove; But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love. Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold, A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold? I am sick of singing; the bays burn deep and chafe: I am fain To rest a little from praise and grievous pleasure and pain. For the Gods we know not of, who give us our daily breath, We know they are cruel as love or life, and lovely as death. O Gods dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day! From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your chains, men say. New Gods are crowned in the city; their flowers have broken your rods; They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compassionate Gods. But for me their new device is barren, the days are bare; Things long past over suffice, and men forgotten that were. Time and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof, Draining a little life from the barren breasts of love. I say to you, cease, take rest; yea, I say to you all, be at peace, Till the bitter milk of her breast and the barren bosom shall cease. Wilt thou yet take all, Galilean? but these thou shalt not take, The laurel, the palms and the pæan, the breasts of the nymphs in the brake; Breasts more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath; And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death; All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre, Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire. More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things? Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings. A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may? For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day. And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears: Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years? Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death. Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day; But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May. Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the end; For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend. Fate is a sea without shore, and the soul is a rock that abides; But her ears are vexed with the roar and her face with the foam of the tides. O lips that the live blood faints in, the leavings of racks and rods! O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted Gods! Though all men abase them before you in spirit, and all knees bend, I kneel not neither adore you, but standing, look to the end. All delicate days and pleasant, all spirits and sorrows are cast Far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past: Where beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates, Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits: Where, mighty with deepening sides, clad about with the seas as with wings, And impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things, White-eyed and poisonous-finned, shark-toothed and serpentine-curled, Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world. The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away; In the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey; In its sides is the north-wind bound; and its salt is of all men's tears; With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years: With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour; And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour: And its vapour and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be; And its noise as the noise in a dream; and its depth as the roots of the sea: And the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air: And the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare. Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods? Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all ye Gods? All ye as a wind shall go by, as a fire shall ye pass and be past; Ye are Gods, and behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon you at last. In the darkness of time, in the deeps of the years, in the changes of things, Ye shall sleep as a slain man sleeps, and the world shall forget you for kings. Though the feet of thine high priests tread where thy lords and our forefathers trod, Though these that were Gods are dead, and thou being dead art a God, Though before thee the throned Cytherean be fallen, and hidden her head, Yet thy kingdom shall pass, Galilean, thy dead shall go down to thee dead. Of the maiden thy mother men sing as a goddess with grace clad around; Thou art throned where another was king; where another was queen she is crowned. Yea, once we had sight of another: but now she is queen, say these. Not as thine, not as thine was our mother, a blossom of flowering seas, Clothed round with the world's desire as with raiment, and fair as the foam, And fleeter than kindled fire, and a goddess, and mother of Rome. For thine came pale and a maiden, and sister to sorrow; but ours, Her deep hair heavily laden with odour and colour of flowers, White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame, Bent down unto us that besought her, and earth grew sweet with her name. For thine came weeping, a slave among slaves, and rejected; but she Came flushed from the full-flushed wave, and imperial, her foot on the sea. And the wonderful waters knew her, the winds and the viewless ways, And the roses grew rosier, and bluer the sea-blue stream of the bays. Ye are fallen, our lords, by what token? we wise that ye should not fall. Ye were all so fair that are broken; and one more fair than ye all. But I turn to her still, having seen she shall surely abide in the end; Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend. O daughter of earth, of my mother, her crown and blossom of birth, I am also, I also, thy brother; I go as I came unto earth. In the night where thine eyes are as moons are in heaven, the night where thou art, Where the silence is more than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart, Where the poppies are sweet as the rose in our world, and the red rose is white, And the wind falls faint as it blows with the fume of the flowers of the night, And the murmur of spirits that sleep in the shadow of Gods from afar Grows dim in thine ears and deep as the deep dim soul of a star, In the sweet low light of thy face, under heavens untrod by the sun, Let my soul with their souls find place, and forget what is done and undone. Thou art more than the Gods who number the days of our temporal breath; Let these give labour and slumber; but thou, Proserpina, death. Therefore now at thy feet I abide for a season in silence. I know I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep; even so. For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span; A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man. So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep. For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.

One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is: Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this. What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under: If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder. Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt: We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without? Why, and whither, and how? for barley and rye are not clover: Neither are straight lines curves: yet over is under and over. Two and two may be four: but four and four are not eight: Fate and God may be twain: but God is the same thing as fate. Ask a man what he thinks, and get from a man what he feels: God, once caught in the fact, shows you a fair pair of heels. Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which: The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch. More is the whole than a part: but half is more than the whole: Clearly, the soul is the body: but is not the body the soul? One and two are not one: but one and nothing is two: Truth can hardly be false, if falsehood cannot be true. Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as cocks: Then the mammoth was God: now is He a prize ox. Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew: You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you. Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock: Cocks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the cock. God, whom we see not, is: and God, who is not, we see: Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.