Algernon Charles Swinburne

“ Is less than the rapture of spirit whereby, though the burden it quits were sore,
24 Our souls and the bodies they wield at their will are absorbed in the life they adore—
In the life that endures no burden, and bows not the forehead, and bends not the knee—
In the life everlasting of earth and of heaven, in the laws that atone and agree,
In the measureless music of things, in the fervour of forces that rest or that roam,
That cross and return and reissue, as I after you and as you after me
Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids and beseeches, athirst for the foam. ”

“ The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word
Is soft as the least wave’s lapse in a still small reach.
From bay into bay, on quest of a goal deferred,
From headland ever to headland and breach to breach
Where earth gives ear to the message that all days preach
With changes of gladness and sadness that cheer and chide,
The lone way lures me along by a chance untried
That haply, if hope dissolve not and faith be whole,
Not all for nought shall I seek, with a dream for guide.
The goal that is not, and ever again the goal.
4 The trackless ways are untravelled of sail or bird ”

“ She saw where the dark sea shone.
Hardly the breadth of a few brief paces,
Hardly the length of a strong man's stride,
The small court flower-lit with children's faces
Scarce held scope for a bird to hide.
Yet here was a man's brood reared and hidden
Between the rocks and the towers and the foam,
Where peril and pity and peace were bidden
As guests to the same sure home.
Here would pity keep watch for peril,
And surety comfort his heart with peace.
No flower save one, where the reefs lie sterile,
Gave of the seed of its heart's increase. ”

“ What the dawn shall be, or if the dawn shall be not, yea, the scroll
Would we read of sleep’s dark scripture, pledge of peace or doom of dole.
Ah, but here man’s heart leaps, yearning toward the gloom with venturous glee,
Though his pilot eye behold nor bay nor harbour, rock nor shoal,
From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.
35 Friend, who knows if death indeed have life or life have death for goal?
Day nor night can tell us, nor may seas declare nor skies unroll
What has been from everlasting, or if aught shall always be. ”

“ And no such pearl in any gulf the sea,
As any babe on any mother’s knee.
But all things blessed of men by saints are banned:
God gives them grace to read and understand
The palimpsest of evil, writ where we,
Poor fools and lovers but of love, can see
Nought save a blessing signed by Love’s own hand.
The smile that opens heaven on us for them
Hath sin’s transmitted birthmark hid therein:
The kiss it craves calls down from heaven a rod.
If innocence be sin that Gods condemn,
Praise we the men who so being born in sin
First dared the doom and broke the bonds of God. ”

“ Wind that shapes and lifts and shifts them bids perpetual memory play
28 Over dreams and in and out of deeds and thoughts which seem to wear
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.
Dawn is wild upon the waters where we drink of dawn to-day:
Wide, from wave to wave rekindling in rebound through radiant air,
Flash the fires unwoven and woven again of wind that works in play,
Working wonders more than heart may note or sight may wellnigh dare,
Wefts of rarer light than colours rain from heaven, though this be rare. ”

“ Where the small town smiles, a warm still sea-side nest.
Many a lone long mile, by many a headland’s crest,
Down by many a garden dear to bird and bee,
7 Up by many a sea-down’s bare and breezy breast,
Winds the sandy strait of road where flowers run free.
Here along the deep steep lanes by field and lea
Knights have carolled, pilgrims chanted, on their quest,
Haply, ere a roof rose toward the bleak strand’s lee,
Where the small town smiles, a warm still sea-side nest.
Are the wild lands cursed perchance of time, or blest,
Sad with fear or glad with comfort of the sea? ”

“ As a bird when the music within her is yet too intense to
⁠be spoken in song,
That pauses a little for pleasure to feel how the notes
⁠from withinwards throng,
So pauses the laugh at his lips for a little, and waxes
⁠within more strong.
As the music elate and triumphal that bids all things of
⁠the dawn bear part
With the tune that prevails when her passion has risen
⁠into rapture of passionate art,
So lightens the laughter made perfect that leaps from its
⁠nest in the heaven of his heart. ”

“ Life and love seek harbourage on the landward side:
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
Friend, though man be less than these, for all his pride,
Yet, for all his weakness, shall not hope abide?
Wind and change can wreck but life and waste but land:
Truth and trust are sure, though here till all subside
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand. 22
IN THE WATER.
The sea is awake, and the sound of the song of the joy of her waking is rolled
From afar to the star that recedes, from anear to the wastes of the wild wide shore. ”

“ O Lords our Gods, beneficent, sublime,
⁠In the evening, and before the morning flames,
⁠We praise, we bless, we magnify your names.
The slave is he that serves not; his the crime
And shame, who hails not as the crown of Time
⁠That House wherein the all-envious world acclaims
⁠Such glory that the reflex of it shames
All crowns bestowed of men for prose or rhyme.
The serf, the cur, the sycophant is he
Who feels no cringing motion twitch his knee
⁠When from a height too high for Shakespeare nods
The wearer of a higher than Milton's crown. ”

“ All her ways are lovely, all her works and symbols are divine,
⁠Yet shall man love best what first bade leap his heart and bend his knee;
Yet where first his whole soul worshipped shall his soul set up her shrine:
⁠Nor may love not know the lovelier, fair as both beheld may be,
⁠Here the limitless north-eastern, there the strait south-western sea.
Though their chant bear all one burden, as ere man was born it bore;
Though the burden be diviner than the songs all souls adore;
⁠Yet may love not choose but choose between them which to love the best. ”

“ Now the flowers whose breath was very song are broken,
Nor may sorrow find again so sweet a song. 144
A SOLITUDE.
Sea beyond sea, sand after sweep of sand,
Here ivory smooth, here cloven and ridged with flow
Of channelled waters soft as rain or snow,
Stretch their lone length at ease beneath the bland
Grey gleam of skies whose smile on wave and strand
Shines weary like a man’s who smiles to know
That now no dream can mock his faith with show,
Nor cloud for him seem living sea or land. ”

“ Of the iron of doom are the casquets carven,
That never the rivets thereof should burst.
When the heart of the darkness is hunger-starven,
And the throats of the gulfs are agape for thirst,
And stars are as flowers that the wind bids wither,
And dawn is as hope struck dead by fear,
The rage of the ravenous night sets hither,
And the crown of her work is here. ”

“ Sweet thought's heart-easing flowers, nor fear,
With reek and roaring steam though fanned,
Nor shrink nor perish as they peer.
The heart's eye holds not those more dear
That glow between the lanes and leas
Where'er the homeliest hand may please
To bid them blossom as they may
Where light approves and wind agrees
At every turn on every way.
Sister, the word of winds and seas
Endures not as the word of these
Your wayside flowers whose breath would say
How hearts that love may find heart's ease
At every turn on every way. ”

“ None would dream that all this moorland’s glow and gloss
Could be dark as tombs that strike the spirit acold
Even in eyes that opened here, and here behold
Now no sun relume from hope’s belated spark
Any comfort, nor may ears of mourners hark
Though the ripe woods ring with golden-throated glee,
While the soul lies shattered, like a stranded bark
On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.
Death and doom are they whose crested triumphs toss
On the proud plumed waves whence mourning notes are tolled. ”

“ It is full not yet, though now so high
That spirits and hopes long pent in prison
Feel round them a sense of freedom nigh,
And a savour keen and sweet of brine and billow,
And a murmur deep and strong of deepening strength.
Though the watchman dream, with sloth or pride for pillow,
And the night be long, not endless is its length.
From the springs of dawn, from clouds that sever
From the equal heavens and the eastward sea,
The witness comes that endures for ever,
Till men be brethren and thralls be free. ”

“ O light of song, whose fire is perfect light!
No speech, no voice, no thought,
No love, avails us aught
For service of thanksgiving in his sight
Who hath given us all for ever
Such gifts that man gave never
So many and great since first Time’s wings took flight.
Man may not praise a spirit above
Man’s: life and death shall praise him: we can only love. ”

“ Lightlier breathes the long low note of change’s gentler call.
Wind and storm and landslip feed the lone sea’s gulf outside,
Half a seamew’s first flight hence; but scarce may these appal
Peace, whose perfect seal is set for signet here on all.
Steep and deep and sterile, under fields no plough can tame,
Dip the cliffs full-fledged with poppies red as love or shame,
14 Wide wan daisies bleak and bold, or herbage harsh and chill;
Here the full clove pinks and wallflowers crown the love they claim.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill! ”

“ Sea and land are fairer now, nor aught is all the same,
⁠Since a mightier hand than Time's hath woven their votive wreath.
⁠Rocks as swords half drawn from out the smooth wave's jewelled sheath,
Fields whose flowers a tongue divine hath numbered name by name,
Shores whereby the midnight or the noon clothed round with flame
⁠Hears the clamour jar and grind which utters from beneath
⁠Cries of hungering waves like beasts fast bound that gnash their teeth,
All of these the sun that lights them lights not like his fame ”

“ Life yearns for solace toward the sea.
107 The dust of ways where men suspire
Seems even the dust of death’s dim lair.
But though the feverish days be dire
The sea-wind rears and cheers its fair
Blithe broods of babes that here and there
Make the sands laugh and glow for glee
With gladder flowers than gardens wear.
Life yearns for solace toward the sea.
The music dies not off the lyre
That lets no soul alive despair.
Sleep strikes not dumb the breathless choir
Of waves whose note bids sorrow spare. ”

“ Supreme rebuke of shame clothed round with glory
And hosts whose track the false crowned eagle shows;
More loud than sounds through stormiest song and story
The laugh of slayers whose names the sea-wind knows;
More loud than peals on land
In many a red wet hand
The clash of gold and cymbals as they close;
Loud as the blast that meets
The might of marshalled fleets
And sheds it into shipwreck, like a rose
Blown from a child’s light grasp in sign
That earth’s high lords are lords not over breeze and brine. ”

“ How shall kings and lords be worshipped, if no man bow the knee?
How, if no man worship these, may thy praise endure with thee?
How, except thou trust in these, shall thy name not lose its might?
These have had their will of thee since the Norman came to smite:
Sires on grandsires, even as wave after wave along the sea,
Sons on sires have followed, steadfast as clouds or hours in flight.
Time alone hath power to say, time alone hath eyes to see,
If your walls of rule be built but of clay-compacted sods,
If your place of old shall know you no more, O Lords our Gods. ”

“ But those found fit to love her,
Whose love has root in faith,
Who hear, though darkness cover
Time’s face, what memory saith,
Who seek not the service of great men or small men
But the weal that is common for comfort of all men,
Those yet that in trust have beholden
Truth’s dawn over England grow golden
And quicken the darkness that stagnates
And scatter the shadows that flee,
Shall reply for her meanest as magnates
And masters by sea. ”

“ The rent heart bears, and wins not yet relief,
Seeing of its pain so dire a portent born,
Must thou not spare one sheaf of all the corn,
One doit of all the treasure? not one sheaf,
Not one poor doit of all? not one dead leaf
Of all that fell and left behind a thorn?
Is man so strong that one should scorn another?
Is any as God, not made of mortal mother,
That love should turn in him to gall and flame?
Nay: but the true is not the false heart's brother:
Love cannot love disloyalty: the name
That else it wears is love no more, but shame. ”

“ Yet, ere sunrise wholly cease to shine,
⁠Ere change come to chide our hearts, and scatter
Memories marked for love's sake with a sign,
⁠Let the light of dawn beholden flatter
Yet some while our eyes that feed on thine,
⁠Child, with love that change nor time can shatter,
Love, whose silent song says more than mine
⁠Now, though charged with elder loves and latter
Here it hails a lord whose years are nine. ”

“ By the force of fear and folly fools have fed their pride:
By the strength of sloth and custom reason stands defied.
155 Lest perchance your reckoning on some latter day be worse,
Halt and hearken, lords of land and princes of the purse,
Ere the tide be full that comes with blessing and with curse.
Where we stand; as where you sit, scarce falls a sprinkling spray;
But the wind that swells, the wave that follows, none shall stay:
Spread no more of sail for shipwreck: out, and clear the way! ”