Algernon Charles Swinburne

Name: Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs
Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne

Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

Summary

“Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs”, published in 1880, is a work by Algernon Charles Swinburne. It explores elements such as song, priestess and love.

Quotes from Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (Algernon Charles Swinburne)

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ Are all borne down death's cold sweet soundless wind
That blows all night and knows not whom its breath,
Darkling, may touch to death:
But one that wind hath touched and changed not,—one
Whose body and soul are parcel of the sun;
One that earth's fire could burn not, nor the sea
Quench; nor might human doom take hold on thee;
All praise, all pity, all dreams have done thee wrong,
All love, with eyes love-blinded from above;
Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love,
Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ Blown by keen gusts of memory sad as thine
Heap the weight up of pain, and break, and leave
Strength scarce enough to grieve
In the sick heavy spirit, unmanned with strife
Of waves that beat at the tired lips of life.
Nay, sad may be man's memory, sad may be
The dream he weaves him as for shadow of thee,
But scarce one breathing-space, one heartbeat long,
Wilt thou take shadow of sadness on thy song.
Not thou, being more than man or man's desire,
Being bird and God in one,
With throat of gold and spirit of the sun ”

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Source: Wikisource

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ But thine the spear may waste not that he wields
Since first the God whose soul is man's live breath,
The sun whose face hath our sun's face for shade,
Put all the light of life and love and death
Too strong for life, but not for love too strong,
Where pain makes peace with pleasure in thy song,
And in thine heart, where love and song make strife,
Fire everlasting of eternal life. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song,
Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love,
Name above all names that are lights above,
We have loved, praised, pitied, crowned and done thee wrong,
O thou past praise and pity; thou the sole
Utterly deathless, perfect only and whole
Immortal, body and soul.
For over all whom time hath overpast
The shadow of sleep inexorable is cast,
The implacable sweet shadow of perfect sleep
That gives not back what life gives death to keep ”

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Source: Wikisource

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ There questing houndlike where the roofs red-wet
Reeked as a wet red grave.
Life everlasting has their strange grace given thee,
Even hers whom thou wast wont to sing and serve
With eyes, but not with song, too swift to swerve;
Yet might not even thine eyes estranged estrange her ”

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Source: Wikisource

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ The sinless matricide and unashamed?
Yea, what new cry is this, what note more bright
Than their song's wing of words was dark of flight,
What word is this thou hast heard,
Thine and not thine or theirs, O Night, what word
More keen than lightning and more sweet than light? ”

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Source: Wikisource

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ And lose nor change one pulse of song, one tone
Of all that were thy lady's and thine own,
Thy lady's whom thou criedst on to forgive,
Thou, priest and sacrifice on the altar-stone
Where none may worship not of all that live,
Love's priestess, errant on dark ways diverse ”

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Source: Wikisource

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ Dumb is the mouth of darkness as of death:
Light, sound and life are one
In the eyes and lips of dawn that draw the sun
To hear what first child's word with glimmering breath
Their weak wan weanling child the twilight saith ”

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Source: Wikisource

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (1880)

“ For round about her have the great gods cast
A wing-borne body, and clothed her close and fast
With a sweet life that hath no part in moan.
But me, for me (how hadst thou heart to hear?)
Remains a sundering with the two-edged spear. ”

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Summary

Quotes from Songs of the Springtides — On the Cliffs (Algernon Charles Swinburne)

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