Algernon Charles Swinburne

“ Give them thyself for hand and head, Thy breath for life, thy love for bread, Thy thought for spirit to refresh, Thy bitterness to pierce and sting, Thy sweetness for a healing spring. Be to them knowledge, strength, life, light, Thou to whose feet the centuries cling And in the wide warmth of thy wing Seek room and rest as birds by night, O thou the kingless people's king, To whom the lips of silence sing, Called by thy name of thanksgiving Freedom, and by thy name of might Justice, and by thy secret name Love; the same need is on the same Men, be the same God in their sight! ”

“ Though all that draw thy breath Bled from all veins to death, And thy dead body were the grave of all their graves, And thine unchilded womb For all their tombs a tomb, At least within thee as on thee room were none for slaves. This power thou hast, to be, Come death or come not, free; That in all tongues of time's this praise be chanted of thee, That in thy wild worst hour This power put in thee power, And moved as hope around and hung as heaven above thee, And while earth sat in sadness In only thee put gladness, Put strength and love, to make all hearts of ages love thee. ”

“ ANTISTROPHE 2 What hast thou done that such an hour should be More than another clothed with blood to thee? Thou hast seen many a bloodred hour before this one. What art thou that thy lovers should misdoubt? What is this hour that it should cast hope out? If hope turn back and fall from thee, what hast thou done? Thou hast done ill against thine own soul; yea, Thine own soul hast thou slain and burnt away, Dissolving it with poison into foul thin fume. Thine own life and creation of thy fate Thou hast set thine hand to unmake and discreate ”

“ The life outlives them and disdains; The sense which makes the soul remains, And blood of thought which travaileth To bring forth hope with procreant pains. O thou that satest bound in chains Between thine hills and pleasant plains As whom his own soul vanquisheth, Held in the bonds of his own thought, Whence very death can take off nought, Nor sleep, with bitterer dreams than death, What though thy thousands at thy knees Lie thick as grave-worms feed on these, Though thy green fields and joyous places Are populous with blood-blackening faces And wan limbs eaten by the sun? ”

“ A little longer ere he and thou be met, Ere in that hand that fed thee to thy mind The poison-cup of life be overset; A little respite of disastrous breath, Till the soul lift up her lost eyes, and find Nor God nor help nor hope, but thee, O Death. 2 Shall a man die before his dying day, Death? and for him though the utter day be nigh, Not yet, not yet we give him leave to die; We give him grace not yet that men should say He is dead, wiped out, perished and past away. Till the last bitterness of life go by, Thou shalt not slay him; till those last dregs run dry, O thou last lord of life! ”

“ Earth shall grow grey with all her golden things, Pale peoples and hoar kings; But though her thrones and towers of nations fall, Death has no part in all; In the air, nor in the imperishable sea, Nor heaven, nor truth, nor thee. Yea, let all sceptre-stricken nations lie, But live thou though they die; Let their flags fade as flowers that storm can mar, But thine be like a star; Let England's, if it float not for men free, Fall, and forget the sea; Let France's, if it shadow a hateful head, Drop as a leaf drops dead; Thine let what storm soever smite the rest Smite as it seems him best ”

“ From this their hour of bloody tears Their praise goes up into thine ears, Their bruised lips clothe thy name with praises, The song of thee their crushed voice raises, Their grief seeks joy for psalms to borrow, With tired feet seeks her through time's mazes Where each day's blood leaves pale the morrow, And from their eyes in thine there gazes A spirit other far than sorrow— A soul triumphal, white and whole And single, that salutes thy soul. EPODE All the lights of the sweet heaven that sing together; All the years of the green earth that bare man free ”

“ This is that very Italy which was And is and shall not pass. § But thou, though all were not well done, O chief, Must thou take shame or grief? Because one man is not as thou or ten, Must thou take shame for men? Because the supreme sunrise is not yet, Is the young dew not wet? Wilt thou not yet abide a little while, Soul without fear or guile, Mazzini,—O our prophet, O our priest, A little while at least? A little hour of doubt and of control, Sustain thy sacred soul; Withhold thine heart, our father, but an hour ”

“ O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain, And by that child mismothered,—dog, by all Thy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal, With what curse shall man curse thee back again? 2 By the brute soul that made man's soul its food; By time grown poisonous with it; by the hate And horror of all souls not miscreate; By the hour of power that evil hath on good; And by the incognizable fatherhood Which made a whorish womb the shameful gate That opening let out loose to fawn on fate A hound half-blooded ravening for man's blood ”

“ Better an end of all men's races, Better the world's whole work were done, And life wiped out of all our traces, And there were left to time not one, Than such as these that fill thy graves Should sow in slaves the seed of slaves. ANTISTROPHE 1 Not of thy sons, O mother many-wounded, Not of thy sons are slaves ingrafted and grown. Was it not thine, the fire whence light rebounded From kingdom on rekindling kingdom thrown, From hearts confirmed on tyrannies confounded, From earth on heaven, fire mightier than his own? ”

“ She is none of this world's things. Though her dead head like a live garland wear The golden-growing hair That flows over her breast down to her feet, Dead queens, whose life was sweet In sight of all men living, have been found So cold, so clad, so crowned, With all things faded and with one thing fair, Their old immortal hair, When flesh and bone turned dust at touch of day: And she is dead as they. So men said sadly, mocking; so the slave, Whose life was his soul's grave; So, pale or red with change of fast and feast, The sanguine-sandalled priest ”

“ Die they in whom dies freedom, die and cease, Though the world weep for these; Live thou and love and lift when these lie dead The green and white and red. § O our Republic that shalt bind in bands The kingdomless far lands And link the chainless ages; thou that wast With England ere she past Among the faded nations, and shalt be Again, when sea to sea Calls through the wind and light of morning time, And throneless clime to clime Makes antiphonal answer; thou that art Where one man's perfect heart Burns, one man's brow is brightened for thy sake, Thine, strong to make or break ”

“ Because they spared not, do thou rather spare: Be not one thing they were. Let not one tongue of theirs who hate thee say That thou wast even as they. Because their hands were bloody, be thine white; Show light where they shed night: Because they are foul, be thou the rather pure; Because they are feeble, endure; Because they had no pity, have thou pity. And thou, O supreme city, O priestless Rome that shall be, take in trust Their names, their deeds, their dust, Who held life less than thou wert ”

“ Are not the night's dead heaped about her feet? Is not death swollen, and slaughter full of meat? What, is their feast a bride-feast, where men sing and dance? A bitter, a bitter bride-song and a shrill Should the house raise that such bride-followers fill, Wherein defeat weds ruin, and takes for bride-bed France. For nineteen years deep shame and sore desire Fed from men's hearts with hungering fangs of fire, And hope fell sick with famine for the food of change. Now is change come, but bringing funeral urns; Now is day nigh, but the dawn blinds and burns ”

“ A woman like to love in face, but not A thing of transient lot— And like to hope, but having hold on truth— And like to joy or youth, Save that upon the rock her feet were set— And like what men forget, Faith, innocence, high thought, laborious peace— And yet like none of these, Being not as these are mortal, but with eyes That sounded the deep skies And clove like wings or arrows their clear way Through night and dawn and day— So fair a presence over star and sun Stood, making these as one. ”

“ Hell yawns on him whose life was as a word Uttered by death in hate of heaven and light, A curse now dumb upon the lips of night. 2 What shapes are these and shadows without end That fill the night full as a storm of rain With myriads of dead men and women slain, Old with young, child with mother, friend with friend, That on the deep mid wintering air impend, Pale yet with mortal wrath and human pain, Who died that this man dead now too might reign, Toward whom their hands point and their faces bend? ”

“ Death, was not this the cupbearer to thee? Nay, let him live then, till in this life's stead Even he shall pray for that thou hast to give; Till seeing his hopes and not his memories fled Even he shall cry upon thee a bitter cry, That life is worse than death; then let him live, Till death seem worse than life; then let him die. 4 O watcher at the guardless gate of kings, O doorkeeper that serving at their feast Hast in thine hand their doomsday drink, and seest With eyeless sight the soul of unseen things ”

“ XVII APOLOGIA If wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song, And make the sunlight fire before those eyes That would drink draughts of peace from the unsoiled skies, The wrongdoing is not ours, but ours the wrong, Who hear too loud on earth and see too long The grief that dies not with the groan that dies, Till the strong bitterness of pity cries Within us, that our anger should be strong. ”

“ The hour with feet to spurn, Hands to crush, fires to burn The state whereto no latter foot of man shall climb. Yea, come what grief, now may By ruinous night or day, One grief there cannot, one the first and last grief, shame. Come force to break thee and bow Down, shame can come not now, Nor, though hands wound thee, tongues make mockery of thy name: Come swords and scar thy brow, No brand there burns it now, No spot but of thy blood marks thy white-fronted fame. Now, though the mad blind morrow With shafts of iron sorrow Should split thine heart, and whelm thine head with sanguine waves ”

“ VIII A CHOICE Faith is the spirit that makes man's body and blood Sacred, to crown when life and death have ceased His heavenward head for high fame's holy feast; But as one swordstroke swift as wizard's rod Made Caesar carrion and made Brutus God, Faith false or true, born patriot or born priest, Smites into semblance or of man or beast The soul that feeds on clean or unclean food. Lo here the faith that lives on its own light, Visible music ”

“ Thou in whose ear the dumb time coming sings, Death, priest and king that makest of king and priest A name, a dream, a less thing than the least, Hover awhile above him with closed wings, Till the coiled soul, an evil snake-shaped beast, Eat its base bodily lair of flesh away; If haply, or ever its cursed life have ceased, Or ever thy cold hands cover his head From sight of France and freedom and broad day, He may see these and wither and be dead. ”

“ When time and truth have put out hopes and fears With certitude, and love has burst the bud, If these whose powers then down the wind shall scud Still live to feel thee smite their eyes and ears, When thy foot's tread hath crushed their crowns and creeds, Care thou not then to crush the beast that bleeds, The snake whose belly cleaveth to the sod, Nor set thine heel on men as on their deeds ”

“ Fly, O our flag, through deep Italian air, Above the flags that were, The dusty shreds of shameful battle-flags Trampled and rent in rags, As withering woods in autumn's bitterest breath Yellow, and black as death; Black as crushed worms that sicken in the sense, And yellow as pestilence. Fly, green as summer and red as dawn and white As the live heart of light, The blind bright womb of colour unborn, that brings Forth all fair forms of things, As freedom all fair forms of nations dyed In divers-coloured pride. ”

“ As red as blood, and whiter than a wave, Flowers grown as from thy grave, From the green fruitful grass in Maytime hot, Thy grave, where thou art not. Gather the grass and weave, in sacred sign Of the ancient earth divine, The holy heart of things, the seed of birth, The mystical warm earth. O thou her flower of flowers, with treble braid Be thy sweet head arrayed, In witness of her mighty motherhood Who bore thee and found thee good, Her fairest-born of children, on whose head Her green and white and red Are hope and light and life, inviolate Of any latter fate. ”

“ In the utter hour of woes, Wind-shaken, blind with blows, Paris lays hold upon her, grasps her with child's hands; Face kindles face with fire, Hearts take and give desire, Strange joy breaks red as tempest on tormented lands. Day to day, man to man, Plights love republican, And faith and memory burn with passion toward each other; Hope, with fresh heavens to track, Looks for a breath's space back, Where the divine past years reach hands to this their brother; And souls of men whose death Was light to her and breath Send word of love yet living to the living mother. ”

“ Shall these lightnings of blind battles give men light? Where is freedom? who will bring us in her sight, That have hardly seen her footprint where she stood? STROPHE 4 Who is this that rises red with wounds and splendid, All her breast and brow made beautiful with scars, Burning bare as naked daylight, undefended, In her hands for spoils her splintered prison-bars, In her eyes the light and fire of long pain ended, In her lips a song as of the morning stars? STROPHE 5 O torn out of thy trance, O deathless, O my France, O many-wounded mother, O redeemed to reign! ”