Algernon Charles Swinburne

“ And softer than dewfall, and kindlier than starlight, and keener than wine,
Came round us the fragrance of waters, the life of the breath of the brine.
We saw not, we heard not, the face or the voice of the waters: we knew
By the darkling delight of the wind as the sense of the sea in it grew,
By the pulse of the darkness about us enkindled and quickened, that here,
Unseen and unheard of us, surely the goal we had faith in was near.
A silence diviner than music, a darkness diviner than light,
Fulfilled as from heaven with a measureless comfort the measure of night. ”

“ If death and not life were the portal
That opens on life at the last,
If the spirit of Sidney were mortal
And the past of it utterly past,
[Pg 126] Fear stronger than honour was ever,
Forgetfulness mightier than fame,
Faith knows not if England should never
Subside into shame.
Yea, but yet is thy sun not set, thy sunbright spirit of trust withdrawn:
England's love of thee burns above all hopes that darken or fears that fawn:
Hers thou art: and the faithful heart that hopes begets upon darkness dawn. ”

“ For hence were the shafts of his love or his anger dealt.
For here has his wrath been fierce as his love was fair,
When each was as fire to the darkness its breath bade melt.
Is it love, is it dread, that enkindles the trembling noon,
That yearns, reluctant in rapture that fear has fed,
As man for woman, as woman for man? Full soon,
If I live, and the life that may look on him drop not dead,
Shall the ear that hears not a leaf quake hear his tread,
The sense that knows not the sound of the deep day's tune
Receive the God, be it love that he brings or dread. ”

“ Seems now the face we loved as he of yore.
⁠We have given thee love—no stint, no stay, no lack:
⁠What gift, what gift is this thou hast given us back?
IV.
But he—to him, who knows what gift is thine,
⁠Death? Hardly may we think or hope, when we
⁠Pass likewise thither where to-night is he,
Beyond the irremeable outer seas that shine
And darken round such dreams as half divine
⁠Some sunlit harbour in that starless sea
⁠Where gleams no ship to windward or to lee,
To read with him the secret of thy shrine. ”

“ That the love and the hate may change not, the faith may not fade, nor the wrath nor scorn,
That shines for her sons and that burns for her foemen as fire of the night or the morn:
That the births of her womb may forget not the sign of the glory wherein they were born.
A light that is more than the sunlight, an air that is brighter than morning's breath,
Clothes England about as the strong sea clasps her, and answers the word that it saith;
The word that assures her of life if she change not, and choose not the ways of death. ”

“ Conceals thy wrath and reveals thy mercy: then
Thou art fearful only for evil souls of men
That feel with nightfall the serpent within them wake,
And hate the holy darkness on glade and glen.
[Pg 133] Yea, then we know not and dream not if ill things be,
Or if aught of the work of the wrong of the world be thine.
We hear not the footfall of terror that treads the sea,
We hear not the moan of winds that assail the pine:
We see not if shipwreck reign in the storm's dim shrine;
If death do service and doom bear witness to thee
We see not,—know not if blood for thy lips be wine. ”

“ Imbues the rapture of dawn and of noon with dread,
Infects the peace of the star-shod night with strife,
Informs with terror the sorrow that guards the dead.
No service of bended knee or of humbled head
May soothe or subdue the God who has change to wife:
And life with death is as morning with evening wed.
And yet, if the light and the life in the light that here
Seem soft and splendid and fervid as sleep may seem
Be more than the shine of a smile or the flash of a tear,
Sleep, change, and death are less than a spell-struck dream,
And fear than the fall of a leaf on a starlit stream. ”

“ For if any there be that hath sight of them, sense, or trust
⁠Made strong by the might of a vision, the strength of a dream,
His lips shall straiten and close as a dead man's must,
⁠His heart shall be sealed as the voice of a frost-bound stream.
⁠For the deep mid mystery of light and of heat that seem
To clasp and pierce dark earth, and enkindle dust,
⁠Shall a man's faith say what it is? or a man's guess deem?
Sleep lies not heavier on eyes that have watched all night
⁠Than hangs the heat of the noon on the hills and trees. ”

“ Time beheld them, and time was quelled; and change passed by them as one that feared.
Time that flies as a dream, and dies as dreams that die with the sleep they feed,
Here alone in a garb of stone incarnate stands as a god indeed,
Stern and fair, and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to man's frail seed.
[Pg 143] Men and years are as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain to shed:
These go by as the winds that sigh, and none takes note of them quick or dead:
Time, whose breath is their birth and death, folds here his pinions, and bows his head. ”

“ Rage with wave on shattering wave and thundering reef on reef.
Death is fallen upon the prisoners there of darkness, bound
Like as thralls with links of iron fast in bonds of doom;
How shall any way to break the bands of death be found,
Any hand avail to pluck them from that raging tomb?
All the night is great with child of death: no stars above
Show them hope in heaven, no lights from shores ward help on earth.
Is there help or hope to seaward, is there help in love,
Hope in pity, where the ravening hounds of storm make mirth? ”

“ Yawns, heaves, and yearns to clasp its loathliest child
Close to the breasts that bore it. All the spell
Whence darkness saw the dawn in heaven defiled
Is dumb as death: the lips that lied and smiled
[Pg 241] Wax white for fear as ashes. She that bore
The banner up of darkness now no more
Sheds night and fear and shame from shore to shore.
When they that cast her kingdom down were born,
North cried on south and east made moan to west
For hopes that love had hardly heart to mourn,
For Italy that was not. ”

“ The wild-winged hour that we fain would capture
⁠Falls as from heaven that its light feet clomb,
So brief, so soft, and so full the rapture
⁠Was felt that soothed me with sense of home.
To sleep, to swim, and to dream, for ever—
Such joy the vision of man saw never;
For here too soon will a dark day sever
⁠The sea-bird's wing from the sea-wave's foam.
A dream, and more than a dream, and dimmer
⁠At once and brighter than dreams that flee,
The moment's joy of the seaward swimmer
⁠Abides, remembered as truth may be. ”

“ Of us that loved and love thee. None may tell
What none but knows—how hard it is to say
The word that seals up sorrow, darkens day,
And bids fare forth the soul it bids farewell.
[Pg 238]
IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI
The wider world of men that is not ours
Receives a soul whose life on earth was light.
Though darkness close the date of human hours,
Love holds the spirit and sense of life in sight,
That may not, even though death bid fly, take flight.
Faith, love, and hope fulfilled with memory, see
As clear and dear as life could bid it be
The present soul that is and is not he. ”

“ The nether soul that lurks and lowers within
Man, made of dust and fire and shame and sin,
Breathed: all the cloud that felt it breathe and blight
Was blue as plague or black as thunderous night.
Elect of hell, the children of his hate
Thronged, as to storm sweet heaven's triumphal gate.
The terror of his giving rose and shone
Imminent: life had put its likeness on.
But higher than all its horrent height of shade
Shone sovereign, seen by light itself had made,
Above the woes of all the world, above
Life, sin, and death, his myriad-minded love. ”

“ Ah, what should darkness do in a world so fair?
The bent-grass heaves not, the couch-grass quails not or cowers;
The wind's kiss frets not the rowan's or aspen's hair.
But the silence trembles with passion of sound suppressed,
And the twilight quivers and yearns to the sunward, wrung
[Pg 130] With love as with pain; and the wide wood's motionless breast
Is thrilled with a dumb desire that would fain find tongue
And palpitates, tongueless as she whom a man-snake stung,
Whose heart now heaves in the nightingale, never at rest
Nor satiated ever with song till her last be sung. ”

“ Ay, but now it is death, not thou, whom time has conquered as years pass on.
Ay, not yet may the land forget that bore and loved thee and praised and wept,
Sidney, lord of the stainless sword, the name of names that her heart's love kept
Fast as thine did her own, a sign to light thy life till it sank and slept.
Bright as then for the souls of men thy brave Arcadia resounds and shines,
Lit with love that beholds above all joys and sorrows the steadfast signs,
Faith, a splendour that hope makes tender, and truth, whose presage the soul divines. ”

“ The breathless rapture of earth till its hour pass by
⁠And leave her spirit released and her peace renewed.
I sleep not: never in sleep has a man beholden
⁠This. From the shadow that trembles and yearns with light
Suppressed and elate and reluctant—obscure and golden
⁠As water kindled with presage of dawn or night—
⁠A form, a face, a wonder to sense and sight,
Grows great as the moon through the month; and her eyes embolden
⁠Fear, till it change to desire, and desire to delight.
I sleep not: sleep would die of a dream so strange ”

“ Joys that joys estrange, and griefs that griefs estrange not,
Day that yearns for night, and night that yearns for day,
As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they change not,
Seeing that change may never change or pass away.
[Pg 247] Life of death makes question, "What art thou that changest?
What am I, that fear should trust or faith should doubt?
I that lighten, thou that darkenest and estrangest,
Is it night or day that girds us round about?
Light and darkness on the ways wherein thou rangest
Seem as one, and beams as clouds they put to rout. ”

“ What loftier heaven, what lordlier air, what space
Illimitable, insuperable, infinite,
Now to that strong-winged soul yields ampler place
Than passing darkness yields to passing light,
[Pg 207] No dream, no faith can tell us: hope and fear,
Whose tongues were loud of old as children's, now
From babbling fall to silence: change is here,
And death; dark furrows drawn by time's dark plough.
Still sunward here on earth its flight was bent,
Even since the man within the child began
To yearn and kindle with superb intent
And trust in time to magnify the man. ”

“ Yet man should fear lest he see what of old men saw
⁠And withered: yet shall I quail if thy breath smite me.
Lord God of life and of light and of all things fair,
⁠Lord God of ravin and ruin and all things dim,
Death seals up life, and darkness the sunbright air,
⁠And the stars that watch blind earth in the deep night swim
⁠Laugh, saying, "What God is your God, that ye call on him?
What is man, that the God who is guide of our way should care
⁠If day for a man be golden, or night be grim?" ”

“ While still her stars through the world's night swim,
⁠A fame outshining her Raleigh's fame,
A light that lightens her loud sea's rim,
Shall shine and sound as her sons proclaim
The pride that kindles at Burton's name.
⁠And joy shall exalt their pride to be
The same in birth if in soul the same.
But we that yearn for a friend's face—we
Who lack the light that on earth was he—
⁠Mourn, though the light be a quenchless flame
That shines as dawn on a tideless sea. ”

“ Far above us and all our love, beyond all reach of its voiceless praise,
Shines for ever the name that never shall feel the shade of the changeful days
Fall and chill the delight that still sees winter's light on it shine like May's.
Strong as death is the dark day's breath whose blast has withered the life we see
Here where light is the child of night, and less than visions or dreams are we:
Strong as death; but a word, a breath, a dream is stronger than death can be. ”

“ Love and trust that the grave's deep dust can soil not, neither may fear put out,
Witness yet that their record set stands fast, though years be as hosts in rout,
Spent and slain; but the signs remain that beat back darkness and cast forth doubt.
[Pg 144] Men that wrought by the grace of thought and toil things goodlier than praise dare trace,
Fair as all that the world may call most fair, save only the sea's own face,
Shrines or songs that the world's change wrongs not, live by grace of their own gift's grace. ”

“ Never love made moan for a life more evil-starred.
⁠Was it envy, chance, or chance-compelling fate,
⁠Whence thy spirit was bruised so late,
⁠Bowed so heavily, bound so hard?
Now released, it may be,—if only love might know—
Filled and fired with sight, it beholds us blind and low
⁠With a pity keener yet, if that may be,
⁠Even than ever was this that we
⁠Felt, when love of thee wrought us woe.
None may tell the depths and the heights of life and death.
What we may we give thee: a word that sorrow saith,
⁠And that none will heed save sorrow: scarce a song. ”

“ Lives for all that have heard the call and cadence yet of its music sound.
Music bright as the soul of light, for wings an eagle, for notes a dove,
Leaps and shines from the lustrous lines wherethrough thy soul from afar above
Shone and sang till the darkness rang with light whose fire is the fount of love.
Love that led thee alive, and fed thy soul with sorrows and joys and fears,
Love that sped thee, alive and dead, to fame's fair goal with thy peerless peers,
Feeds the flame of thy quenchless name with light that lightens the rayless years. ”