Algernon Charles Swinburne

“ That feel when the dim week changes by change of their tides in the dark,
As the wave sinks under within them, reluctant, removed from its mark,
Even there in the terror of twilight in bloom with its blossoms ablush,
Did a sense of him touch not the gleam of their flowers with a fierier flush?
Though the sun they behold not for ever, yet knew they not over them One
Whose soul was the soul of the morning, whose song was the song of the sun?
But the secrets inviolate of sunlight in hollows untrodden of day,
Shall he dream what are these who beholds not? ”

“ That lack no live blood-sacrifice they crave
Of shipwreck and the shrine-subservient wave,
Having for priest the storm-wind, and for choir
Lightnings and clouds whose prayer and praise are fire,
All the isle acclaimed him coming; she, the least
Of all things loveliest that the sea's love hides
From strange men's insult, walled about with tides
That bid strange guests back from her flower-strewn feast,
Set all her fields aflower, her flowers aflame,
To applaud him that he came. ”

“ Peers under, and all is as hollow to hellward, agape and aghast.
But afloat and afar in the darkness a tremulous colour subsides ant. 8
From the crimson high crest of the purple-peaked roof to the soft-coloured sides
That brighten as ever they widen till downward the level is won
Of the soundless and colourless water that knows not the sense of the sun:
From the crown of the culminant arch to the floor of the lakelet abloom,
One infinite blossom of blossoms innumerable aflush through the gloom. ”