Algernon Charles Swinburne

“ And I feel her, Bill, sir, inside me—she operates there like a drug.
Were it better to live like a beetle, to wear the cast clothes of a slug,
Be the louse in the locks of the hangman, the mote in the eye of the bat,
Than to live and believe in a woman, who must one day grow aged and fat?
You must see it's preposterous, Bill, sir. And yet, how the thought of it clings!
I have lived out my time—I have prigged lots of verse—I have kissed (ah, that stings!)
Lips that swore I had cribbed every line that I wrote on them—cribbed—honour bright! ”

“ Moons' ends match roses' ends: men by beasts' noses' ends mete sin's stink's cure.
VI
Leaves love last year smelt now feel dead love's tears melt—flies caught in time's mesh!
Salt are the dews in which new time breeds new sin, brews blood and stews flesh;
Next year may see dead more germs than this weeded and reared them afresh.
VII
Old times left perish, there's new time to cherish; life just shifts its tune;
As, when the day dies, earth, half afraid, eyes the growth of the moon;
Love me and save me, take me or waive me; death takes one so soon! ”

“ I with my soul like wine poured out with my flesh for the cup—
It was hard for me—it was hard—Bill, Bill, you great owl, was it not?
For the day creeps in like a Fate: and I think my grand passion is rot:
And I dreamily seem to perceive, by the light of a life's dream done,
The lotion at six, and the mixture at ten, and the draught before one. [Pg 415]
Yes—I feel rather better. ”

“ Crab's bulk's less (look!) than man's—yet (quoth Cancer) I am my size,
And my bulk's girth contents me! Man's maw (see?) craves two things—wheat
And flesh likewise—man's gluttonous—damn his eyes! [Pg 382]
XI
Crab's content with crab's provender: crab's love, if soothing,
Is no sweeter than pincers are soft—and a new sickle
Cuts no sharper than crab's claws nip, keen as boar's toothing!
Yet crab's love's no less fervent than bard's, if less musical—
'Tis a new thing I'd lilt—but a true thing. ”

“ Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which:
The soul squats down in the flesh, like a tinker drunk in a ditch. ”

“ Man's life is a mull, at the best;
And the patent perturbator pills are like bullets of lead in my chest.
When a man's whole spirit is like the lost Pleiad, a blown-out star,
Is there comfort in Holloway, Bill? is there hope of salvation in Parr?
True, most things work to their end—and an end that the shroud overlaps. ”

“ Had the æons thought of making thee a man, and me a louse.
"The broad lives of upper planets, their absorption and digestion,
Food and famine, health and sickness, I can scrutinize and test;
Through a shiver of the senses comes a resonance of question,
And by proof of balanced answer I decide that I am best." [Pg 397]
"Man, the fleshly marvel, alway feels a certain kind of awe stick
To the skirts of contemplation, cramped with nympholeptic weight:
Feels his faint sense charred and branded by the touch of solar caustic,
On the forehead of his spirit feels the footprint of a Fate." ”

“ But love; being love, it was not (understand)
Such a thing as the years let fall (believe)
Like the rope's coil dropt from a fisherman's hand
When the boat's hauled up—"by your leave!"
II
So—well! How that crab writhes—leg after leg
Drawn, as a worm draws ring upon ring
Gradually, not gladly! Chicken or egg,
Is it more than the ransom (say) of a king
(Take my meaning at least) that I beg?
III
Not so! ”

“ Now you'll grant it's more probable, Bill—as a man of the world, if you please—
That all these should have prigged from myself than that I should have prigged from all these.
I could cry when I think of it, friend, if such tears would comport with my dignity,
That the author of Christabel ever should smart from such vulgar malignity. ”

“ For that poem—and then for the julep. This really is damnable stuff!
(Not the poem, of course.) Do you snivel, old friend? well, it's nasty enough,
But I think I can stand it—I think so—ay, Bill, and I could were it worse.
But I'll tell you a thing that I can't and I won't. 'Tis the old, old curse—
The gall of the gold-fruited Eden, the lure of the angels that fell.
'Tis the core of the fruit snake-spotted in the hush of the shadows of hell,
Where a lost man sits with his head drawn down, and a weight on his eyes. ”

“ Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby,
As they grope through the grave-yard of creeds, under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of God. ”

“ For a poet, Bill, is a blossom—a bird—a billow—a breeze—
A kind of creature that moves among men as a wind among trees. [Pg 414]
And a bard who is also the pet of patricians and dowagers doubly can
Express his contempt for canaille in his fables where beasts are republican. ”

“ Ah, why should all honey turn rhubarb—all cherries grow onions—all kisses leave blisters?
Oh, and why should I ask myself questions? I've heard such before—once or twice.
Ah, I can't understand it—but, O, I imagine it strikes me as nice.
There's a deity shapes us our ends, sir, rough-hew them, my boy, how we will—
As I stated myself in a poem I published last year, you know, Bill—
[Pg 410] Where I mentioned that that was the question—to be, or, by Jove, not to be.
Ah, it's something—you'll think so hereafter—to wait on a poet like me. ”

“ As a man's face kept fighting all life through gets scored,
Mossed and marked with grey purulent leprosies, sick,
Flat and foul as man's life here (be swift with your sword—
Cut the soul out, stuck fast where thorns prick!) [Pg 387]
XXVI
—Say it let the rock's heart out, its meaning, the thing
All was made for, devised, ruled out gradually, planned—
Ah, that sea-shell, perhaps—since it lies, such a ring
Of pure colour, a cup full of sunbeams, to stand
(Say, in Lent) at the priest's hand— (no king!)
XXVII
Blame the cleft then? ”

“ Dodge has chosen a subject of which he is master, and treated it with a fulness that leaves nothing to be desired, and in a style which is charming equally for its picturesqueness and purity."—Nonconformist. ”

“ But picked up on the banks of the Don, from the lips of a highly intelligent Bulgar.
I'm aware, Bill, that's out of all metre—I can't help it—I'm none of your sort
Who set metres, by Jove, above morals—not exactly. They don't go to Court—
As I mentioned one night to that cowslip-faced pet, Lady Rahab Redrabbit [Pg 408]
(Whom the Marquis calls Drabby for short) . Well, I say, if you want a thing, grab it—
That's what I did, at least, when I took that danseuse to a swell cabaret,
Where expense was no consideration. A poet, you see, now and then must be gay. ”

“ Te is wet! when woe can tithe up the work of a really qualified investigater, whe in the intervals of his more'sérions professional iebouss sets himself te impart kuamledge in sick a stutple and elementary form as may attract and fagtruct, twith uo dauger of misleading the tyro in matured science, Such a work is this Little volume, made af of essays and addresses written and delivered by Dr. ”

“ It is just the book for the lady of the house to have at hand when making ufi the County dinner, as it gives exactly that information which punctilious and particular obtaining the exact standing of every person in the county. people are so desirous of To the business man, ' The County Families stands in the place of directory and biographical dictionary. ”

“ By the Ean of Dunraven, With Maps and numerous striking full-page Ulnstrations by VALENTINE W, BROMLEY. " There har not for a lone time appeared a better hook of travel than Lord Drnvaven's ' The Great Divide! . . . The book is full ef clever obiervation, and doth narrative and tinstrations are thorenghly good."'"—ATHEN ZUM.
Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 6s. ”

“ Some lost fragment of tune it thought sweet ere it grew sick;
(Is it life that disclaims this, or death that disowns?)
Mere dead metal, scrawled bars—ah, one touch, you make music!
Love's worth saving, youth doubts, but experience depones. [Pg 394]
VI
In the darkness (right Dickens) of Tom-All-Alone's
Or the Morgue out in Paris, where tragedy centuples
Life's effects by Death's algebra, Shakespeare (Malone's)
Might have said sleep was murdered—new scholiasts have sent you pills
To purge text of him! Bread? give me—Scotticè—scones! ”

“ Or life's counterpoint grates the C major of discords—
'Tis man's choice 'twixt sluts rose-crowned and queens age dethrones.
VIII
I for instance might groan as a bag-pipe groans,
Give the flesh of my heart for sharp sorrows to flagellate,
Grief might grind my cheeks down, age make sticks of my bones,
(Though a queen drowned in tears must be worth more than Madge elate) [1]
Rose might turn burdock, and pine-apples cones ”

“ Examples of Contemporary Art. Etchings from Representative Works by living English and Foreign Artists. Edited, with Critical Notes, by J. Comyns Carr,
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