Algernon Charles Swinburne

“ ALBOVINE.
Plead? hast thou found her noble maidenhood
Ignobly turned unmaidenlike? I may not
Lightly believe it.
ROSAMUND.
Believe it not at all.
Wouldst thou think shame of me—lightly? She loves
As might a maid whose kin were northern gods
The fairest-faced of warriors Lombard born,
Thine Almachildes.
ALBOVINE.
If he loves not her,
More fool is he than warrior even, though war
Have wakened laughter in his eyes, and left
His golden hair fresh gilded, when his hand
Had won the crown that clasps a boy’s brows close
With first-born sign of battle. ”

“ The Life of Algernon Charles Swinburne (MACMILLAN) is a book that may be regarded as filling, at least partially, what has long been an aching void in our biographical shelves. I say partially, because the time has not perhaps fully come for an unreserved appreciation of a character whose handling must present exceptional difficulties. One cannot but notice how many obstacles Mr. EDMUND GOSSE has had to overcome, or avoid, in the present volume. The result inevitably is a certain sense of over-discretion that makes the whole study so detached as to be at times lacking in vitality. ”

“ More like than thou and he—nor lovelier: yet
No twins were ye.
LUCREZIA
What ails thy Holiness?
ALEXANDER
I am ill at ease: my heart is sick. Last night
No revel here was held, and yet the day
Strikes heavier on me wearier, body and soul,
Than though we had rioted out with raging mirth
The lifelong length of darkness.
LUCREZIA
Evil hours
Fret somewhiles all folk living; none sees why:
No child sleeps always all night long.
ALEXANDER
Wast thou
Wakeful? No trouble clung about thee? Nought
Made the air of night heavier with presage felt
As joy feels fear and withers? ”

“ But if I will not, yet I will not, sir, For all the mouths in Scotland. Now, by heaven, As I am pleased he shall not die but live, So shall ye be. There is no man shall die, Except it please me; and no man shall say, Except it please me, if I do ill or well. Which of you now will set his will to mine? Not you, nor you I think, nor none of you, Nor no man living that loves living well. Let one stand forth and smite me with his hand, Wring my crown off and cast it underfoot, And he shall get my respite back of me, And no man else: he shall bid live or die, And no man else ”

“ Enter Albovine and Rosamund.
ALBOVINE.
This June makes babes of men; last night I deemed
When thou hadst wished me peace as I passed forth
A footfall pressed behind me soft and fast,
And turning toward it I beheld nought: thee
I saw, and Almachildes hard at hand
Turned back toward thee: nought stranger: yet my heart
Sprang, and sank back. I laughed against myself,
That manhood should be girlish, when the heat
Burns life half out within us. Even thine eyes,
Like stars before the wind that brings the cloud,
Look fainter. ”

“ ALBOVINE.
My sire’s wife loved him? Hers he had not slain.
Would God I might but die and burn in hell
And know my love had loved me!
NARSETES.
Is thy name
Babe? Sweet are babes as flowers that wed the sun,
But man may be not born a babe again,
And less than man may woman. Rosamund
Stands radiant now in royal pride of place
As wife of thine and queen of Lombards—not
Cunimund’s daughter. Hadst thou slain her sire
Shamefully, shame were thine to have sought her hand
And shame were hers to love thee: but he died
Manfully, by thy mightier hand than his
Manfully mastered. ”

“ Die thou by me a death less dire.'
Sharp flashed his sword forth, fleet as flame,
And shore away her sorcerous head.
'Alas for shame,' the high king said,
'That one found once my friend lies dead;
Alas for all our shame!
'Thou shouldst have here forborne her; yea,
Were all the wrongs that bid men slay
Thine, heaped too high for wrath to weigh,
Not here before my face to-day
Was thine the right to wreak thy wrong.'
Still stood he then as one that found
His rose of hope by storm discrowned,
And all the joy that girt him round
Brief as a broken song. ”

“ ALMACHILDES.
I am not
So stricken, king. I thank thy care of me.
ALBOVINE.
Heart-stricken or shame-stricken art thou?
ROSAMUND.
King,
Spare him. Thou knowest not love like his. It burns
And rends and wrings the spirit.
ALBOVINE.
No. And thou,
Dost thou then?
ROSAMUND.
Eyes and heart and sense are mine
As weak and strong as woman’s can but be;
As weak in strength and strong in weakness. Men,
Being wise, and mightier than their mates on earth,
Need no such knowledge born of inborn pain
As quickens all the spirit of sense in us.
Worms know what eagles know not. ”

“ Flowerwise ere any flower of earth's would blow;
So swift they sprang and sank, so sweet and light
They swam the deep dim breathless air of night.
Now on her rose-white amorous breast half bare,
Now on her slumberous love-dishevelled hair,
The white wings lit and vanished, and afresh
Lit soft as snow lights on her snow-soft flesh,
On hand or throat or shoulder; and she stirred
Sleeping, and spake some tremulous bright word,
And laughed upon some dream too sweet for truth,
Yet not so sweet as very love and youth
That there had charmed her eyes to sleep at last. ”

“ Blake's estimate of Swedenborg, right or wrong, was, as we shall see, distinct and consistent; to this effect; that his inspiration was limited and timid, superficial and derivative; that he was content with leaves and husks, and had not the courage to examine the root and the kernel of things; that he clove to the heaven and shrank from the hell of other men; whereas, to men in whom "a new heaven is begun," the one must not be terrible nor the other desirable. ”

“ In this drawing of Paolo's three men lie dead in a wide woody field; the youngest in front, turned half over on his face as one who has died hard; the two others rigid and supine, with faces upturned to the bleak heaven, as men slain by sudden judgment. The rare trees growing in this fatal field of blood, a barren and storm-swept Aceldama, are bare of limb and worried with wind, blown out of shape and vexed with violent air; not a bird or beast has here place to feed or sing, but a grey and drifted roof of cloud leaves dark the shaken grass and haggard trees. ”

“ Stories have come to hand of late, which, being seemingly accurate in the main, though not as yet duly fixed in detail or date, remove any such ground of fear. They do better; they bring proof once again of the noble charity, the tender exaltation of mind, the swift bounty of hand, which would have made memorable a man meaner in talent. Once, it is said, he lent £40 to some friend in distress, which friend’s wife, having laid out most of her windfall in dress, thought Mrs. Blake might like to see that by way of change for her husband’s money. ”

“ For the wrath and the joy that fulfil him are mightier
than man's, whom he slays and spoils.
And vainly, with heart divided in sunder, and labour of
wavering will,
The lord of their host takes counsel with hope if haply
their star shine still,
If haply some light be left them of chance to renew and
redeem the fray;
But the will of the black south-wester is lord of the
councils of war to-day.
One only spirit it quells not, a splendour undarkened of
chance or time;
Be the praise of his foes with Oquendo for ever, a name
as a star sublime. ”

“ From thine own Genoese
To where of nights the lower extreme lagune
Feels its Venetian moon,
Nor suckling's mouth nor mother's breast set free
But hath that grace through thee.
The milk of life on death's unnatural brink
Thou gavest them to drink,
The natural milk of freedom; and again
They drank, and they were men.
The wine and honey of freedom and of faith
They drank, and cast off death.
Bear with them now; thou art holier: yet endure,
Till they as thou be pure.
Their swords at least that stemmed half Austria's tide
Bade all its bulk divide ”

“ This was Algernon Charles Swinburne, son of an English admiral and grandson, on the maternal side, of the Earl of Ashburnham.
He strange countenance was transfigured when he spoke. I have seldom seen a man more impressive, more eloquent, incisive or charming in conversation. ”

“ On thy bosom though many a kiss be,
There are none such as knew it of old.
Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe,
Male ringlets or feminine gold,
That thy lips met with under the statue,
Whence a look shot out sharp after thieves
From the eyes of the garden-god at you
Across the fig-leaves?
Then still, through dry seasons and moister,
One god had a wreath to his shrine;
Then love was the pearl of his oyster, [4]
And Venus rose red out of wine.
We have all done amiss, choosing rather
Such loves as the wise gods disdain;
Intercede for us thou with thy father,
Our Lady of Pain. ”

“ Thou art fairer than thou knowest, I doubt: thou art fair
As the awless maidenhood of morning: truth
Should live upon thy lips, though truth were dead
On all men’s tongues and women’s born save thine.
Dawn lies not when it laughs on us. Thy queen
I am not now: thy friend I would be. Tell
Thy friend if love sleep or awake in thee
Toward any man. Thou art silent. Tell me this,
Dost thou not think, where thought scarce knows itself—
Think in the subtle sense too deep for thought—
That Almachildes loves thee? ”

“ Yes—I feel rather better. 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.
Under lace, under silk, under gold, sir, the skirt of a winding-sheet flaps—
Which explains, if you think of it, Bill, why I can't, though my soul thereon broodeth,
Quite make out if I loved Lady Tamar as much as I loved Lady Judith. ”

“ As when she came out of the naked sea
⁠Making the foam as fire whereon she trod,
And as the inner flower of fire was she.
Yea, she laid hold upon me, and her mouth
Clove unto mine as soul to body doth,
⁠And, laughing, made her lips luxurious;
Her hair had smells of all the sunburnt south,
Strange spice and flower, strange savour of crushed fruit,
And perfume the swart kings tread underfoot
⁠For pleasure when their minds wax amorous,
Charred frankincense and grated sandal-root. ”

“ Am I Scythian born, or Greek,
That I should take thy bloodshed on my hand?
DEBON.
Nay—if thou seest me soul to soul, and showest
Mercy—
CAMBER.
Thou think’st I would have slain thee? Speak.
DEBON.
Nay, then I will, for love of all this land:
Lest, if suspicion bring forth strife, and fear
Hatred, its face be withered with a curse;
Lest the eyeless doubt of unseen ill be worse
Than very truth of evil. Thou shalt hear
Such truth as falling in a base man’s ear
Should bring forth evil indeed in hearts perverse ”

“ Art thou my son?
CÆSAR
Whom should thy radiant Rose
Have found so fit to ingraff with, and bring forth
So strong a scion as I am?
ALEXANDER
By my faith—
Wherein, I know not—by my soul, if that
Be—I believe it. God forgot his doom
When he thou hast slain drew breath before thee
CÆSAR
God
Must needs forget—if God remember. Now
This thing thou hast loved, and I that swept him hence
Held never fit for hate of mine, is dead,
Wilt thou be one with me—one God? No less,
Lord Christ of Rome, thou wilt be. ”

“ A LYRIC There's nae lark loves the lift, my dear, There's nae ship loves the sea, There's nae bee loves the heather-bells, That loves as I love thee, my love, That loves as I love thee. The whin shines fair upon the fell, The blithe broom on the lea: The muirside wind is merry at heart: It's a' for love of thee, my love, It's a' for love of thee. Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] ”

“ Canst thou forgive not?
ALMACHILDES.
Sweet, for thee and me
Remains no rescue save by death or flight
From worse than flight or death is.
HILDEGARD.
Worse is nought
But shame: and how may shame take hold on us,
On us who have sinned not? Me she bound to play thee
False, and betray thee to her arms: I might not
Choose, though my heart should rend itself in twain
And cleave with ravenous anguish: yet I live. ”

“ Deep down the stifling lips and drowning hair,
She would not care.
Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see.
Sing all once more together; surely she,
She too, remembering days and words that were,
Will turn a little toward us, sighing; but we,
We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there.
Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me,
She would not see.
ITYLUS
Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,
How can thine heart be full of the spring?
A thousand summers are over and dead.
What hast thou found in the spring to follow? ”

“ It will not sting for my sake;
Yea,” she said, “I do right.”
So spake she, drunken with dreams,
Mad; but again in her ears
A voice as of storm-swelled streams
Spake; “No brave shame then redeems
Thy lusts of sloth and thy fears?
“Thy poor lie slain of thine hands,
Their starved limbs rot in thy sight;
As a shadow the ghost of thee stands
Among men living and lands,
And stirs not leftward or right.
“Freeman he is not, but slave,
Who stands not out on my side;
His own hand hollows his grave,
Nor strength is in me to save
Where strength is none to abide. ”