Algernon Charles Swinburne

“I will go back to the great sweet mother,Mother and lover of men, the sea.I will go down to her, I and none other,Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me.Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast;O fair white mother, in days long passedBorn without sister, born without brother,Set free my soul as thy soul is free.”

“And with light lips yet full of their swift smile,And hands that wist not though they dug a grave,Undid the hasps of gold, and drank, and gave,And he drank after, a deep glad kingly draught:And all their life changed in them, for they quaffedDeath; if it be death so to drink, and fareAs men who change and are what these twain were.And shuddering with eyes full of fear and fireAnd heart-stung with a serpentine desireHe turned and saw the terror in her eyesThat yearned upon him shining in such wiseAs a star midway in the midnight fixed. Their Galahault was the cup, and she that mixed;Nor other hand there needed, nor sweet speechTo lure their lips together; each on eachHung with strange eyes and hovered as a birdWounded, and each mouth trembled for a world;Their heads neared, and their hands were drawn in one,And they saw dark, though still the unsunken sunFar through fine rain shot fire into the south;And their four lips became one burning mouth.”

“And Iseult rose up where she sat apart,And with her sweet soul deepening her deep eyesCast the furs from her and subtle embroideriesThat wrapped her from the storming rain and spray,And shining like all April in one day,Hair, face, and throat dashed with the straying showers,She stood the first of all the whole world's flowers,And laughed on Tristram with her eyes, and said,"I too have heart then, I was not afraid."And answering some light courteous word of graceHe saw her clear face lighten on his faceUnwittingly, with unenamoured eyesFor the last time.”

“And her heart sprang in Iseult, and she drewWith all her spirit and life the sunrise throughAnd through her lips the keen triumphant airSea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were,And through her eyes the whole rejoicing eastSun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feastSpread for the morning; and the imperious mirthOf wind and light that moved upon the earth,Making the spring, and all the fruitful mightAnd strong regeneration of delightThat swells the seedling leaf and sapling man,Since the first life in the first world beganTo burn and burgeon through void limbs and veins,And the first love with sharp sweet procreant painsTo pierce and bring forth roses; yea, she feltThrough her own soul the sovereign morning melt,And all the sacred passion of the sun;And as the young clouds flamed and were undoneAbout him coming, touched and burnt awayIn rosy ruin and yellow spoil of day,The sweet veil of her body and corporal senseFelt the dawn also cleave it, and incenseWith light from inward and with effluent heatThe kindling soul through fleshly hands and feet.And as the august great blossom of the dawnBurst, and the full sun scarce from sea withdrawnSeemed on the fiery water a flower afloat,So as a fire the mighty morning smoteThroughout her, and incensed with the influent hourHer whole soul's one great mystical red flowerBurst, and the bud of her sweet spirit brokeRose-fashion, and the strong spring at a strokeThrilled, and was cloven, and from the full sheath cameThe whole rose of the woman red as flame:And all her Mayday blood as from a swoonFlushed, and May rose up in her and was June.So for a space her hearth as heavenward burned:Then with half summer in her eyes she turned,And on her lips was April yet, and smiled,As though the spirit and sense unreconciledShrank laughing back, and would not ere its hourLet life put forth the irrevocable flower.And the soft speech between them grew again”

“To fill the days up of his dateless yearFlame from Queen Helen to Queen Guenevere?For first of all the sphery signs wherebyLove severs light from darkness, and most high,In the white front of January there glowsThe rose-red sign of Helen like a rose:And gold-eyed as the shore-flower shelterlessWhereon the sharp-breathed sea blows bitterness,A storm-star that the seafarers of loveStrain their wind-wearied eyes for glimpses of,Shoots keen through February's grey frost and dampThe lamplike star of Hero for a lamp;The star that Marlowe sang into our skiesWith mouth of gold, and morning in his eyes;And in clear March across the rough blue seaThe signal sapphire of AlcyoneMakes bright the blown bross of the wind-foot year;And shining like a sunbeam-smitten tearFull ere it fall, the fair next sign in sightBurns opal-wise with April-coloured lightWhen air is quick with song and rain and flame,My birth-month star that in love's heaven hath nameIseult, a light of blossom and beam and shower,My singing sign that makes the song-tree flower;Next like a pale and burning pearl beyondThe rose-white sphere of flower-named RosamondSigns the sweet head of Maytime; and for JuneFlares like an angered and storm-reddening moonHer signal sphere, whose Carthaginian pyreShadowed her traitor's flying sail with fire;Next, glittering as the wine-bright jacinth-stone,A star south-risen that first to music shone,The keen girl-star of golden Juliet bearsLight northward to the month whose forehead wearsHer name for flower upon it, and his treesMix their deep English song with Veronese;And like an awful sovereign chrysoliteBurning, the supreme fire that blinds the night,The hot gold head of Venus kissed by Mars,A sun-flower among small sphered flowers of stars,The light of Cleopatra fills and burnsThe hollow of heaven whence ardent August yearns;And fixed and shining as the sister-shedSweet tears for Phaethon disorbed and dead,The pale bright autumn's amber-coloured sphere,That through September sees the saddening yearAs love sees change through sorrow, hath to nameFrancesca's; and the star that watches flameThe embers of the harvest overgoneIs Thisbe's, slain of love in Babylon,Set in the golden girdle of sweet signsA blood-bright ruby; last save one light shinesAn eastern wonder of sphery chrysopras,The star that made men mad, Angelica's; And latest named and lordliest, with a soundOf swords and harps in heaven that ring it round,Last love-light and last love-song of the year's,Gleams like a glorious emerald Guenevere's.”

“Before the beginning of yearsThere came to the making of manTime, with a gift of tears;Grief, with a glass that ran;Pleasure, with pain for leaven;Summer, with flowers that fell;Remembrance, fallen from heaven,And madness risen from hell;Strength without hands to smite;Love that endures for a breath;Night, the shadow of light,And Life, the shadow of death.”

“Love, that is first and last of all things made,The light that has the living world for shade,The spirit that for temporal veil has onThe souls of all men woven in unison,One fiery raiment with all lives inwroughtAnd lights of sunny and starry deed and thought,And alway through new act and passion newShines the divine same body and beauty through,The body spiritual of fire and lightThat is to worldly noon as noon to night;Love, that is flesh upon the spirit of manAnd spirit within the flesh whence breath began;Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime;Love, that is blood within the veins of time;That wrought the whole world without stroke of hand,Shaping the breadth of sea, the length of land,And with the pulse and motion of his breathThrough the great heart of the earth strikes life and death,The sweet twain chords that make the sweet tune liveThrough day and night of things alternative,Through silence and through sound of stress and strife,And ebb and flow of dying death and life:Love, that sounds loud or light in all men's ears,Whence all men's eyes take fire from sparks of tears,That binds on all men's feet or chains or wings;Love that is root and fruit of terrene things;Love, that the whole world's waters shall not drown,The whole world's fiery forces not burn down;Love, that what time his own hands guard his headThe whole world's wrath and strength shall not strike dead;Love, that if once his own hands make his graveThe whole world's pity and sorrow shall not save;Love, that for very life shall not be sold,Nor bought nor bound with iron nor with gold;So strong that heaven, could love bid heaven farewell,Would turn to fruitless and unflowering hell;So sweet that hell, to hell could love be given,Would turn to splendid and sonorous heaven;Love that is fire within thee and light above,And lives by grace of nothing but of love;Through many and lovely thoughts and much desireLed these twain to the life of tears and fire;Through many and lovely days and much delightLed these twain to the lifeless life of night.”

“Love, is it morning risen or night deceasedThat makes the mirth of this triumphant east?Is it bliss given or bitterness put byThat makes most glad men's hearts at love's high feast?Grief smiles, joy weeps, that day should live and die."Is it with soul's thirst or with body's drouthThat summer yearns out sunward to the south,With all the flowers that when thy birth drew nighWere molten in one rose to make thy mouth?O love, what care though day should live and die?"Is the sun glad of all love on earth,The spirit and sense and work of things and worth?Is the moon sad because the month must flyAnd bring her death that can but bring back birth?For all these things as day must live and die."Love, is it day that makes thee thy delightOr thou that seest day made out of thy light?Love, as the sun and sea are thou and I,Sea without sun dark, sun without sea bright;The sun is one though day should live and die."O which is elder, night or light, who knows?And life or love, which first of these twain grows?For life is born of love to wail and cry,And love is born of life to heal his woes,And light of night, that day should live and die."O sun of heaven above the wordly sea,O very love, what light is this of thee!My sea of soul is deep as thou art high,But all thy light is shed through all of me,As love's through love, while day shall live and die.”

“So Tristram looked on Iseult face to faceand knew not, and she knew not. The last time --The last that should be told in any rhymeHeard anywhere on mouths of singing menThat ever should sing praise of them again;The last hour of their hurtless hearts at rest,The last that peace should touch them, breast to breast,The last that sorrow far from them should sit,This last was with them, and they knew not it.”

“She might come in to bride-bed: and he laughed,As one that wist not well of wise love's craft,And bade all bridal things be as she would.Yet of his gentleness he gat not good;For clothed and covered with the nuptial darkSoft like a bride came Brangwain to King Mark,And to the queen came Tristram; and the night Fled, and ere danger of detective lightFrom the king sleeping Brangwain slid away,And where had lain her handmaid Iseult lay.And the king waking saw beside his headThat face yet passion-coloured, amorous redFrom lips not his, and all that strange hair shedAcross the tissued pillows, fold on fold,Innumerable, incomparable, all gold,To fire men's eyes with wonder, and with loveMen's hearts; so shone its flowering crown aboveThe brows enwound with that imperial wreath,And framed with fragrant radiance round the face beneath.And the king marvelled, seeing with sudden startHer very glory, and said out of his heart;"What have I done of good for God to blessThat all this he should give me, tress on tress,All this great wealth and wondrous? Was it thisThat in mine arms I had all night to kiss,And mix with me this beauty? this that seemsMore fair than heaven doth in some tired saint's dreams,Being part of that same heaven? yea, more, for he,Though loved of God so, yet but seems to see,But to me sinful such great grace is givenThat in mine hands I hold this part of heaven,Not to mine eyes lent merely. Doth God makeSuch things so godlike for man's mortal sake?Have I not sinned, that in this fleshly lifeHave made of her a mere man's very wife?”

“And thither, ere sweet night had slain sweet day,Iseult and Tristram took their wandering way,And rested, and refreshed their hearts with cheerIn hunters' fashion of the woods; and hereMore sweet it seemed, while this might be, to dwellAnd take of all world's weariness farewellThan reign of all world's lordship queen and king.Nor here would time for three moon's changes bringSorrow nor thought of sorrow; but sweet earthFostered them like her babes of eldest birth,Reared warm in pathless woods and cherished well.And the sun sprang above the sea and fell,And the stars rose and sank upon the sea;And outlaw-like, in forest wise and free,The rising and the setting of their lightsFound those twain dwelling all those days and nights.And under change of sun and star and moonFlourished and fell the chaplets woven of June,And fair through fervours of the deepening skyPanted and passed the hours that lit July,And each day blessed them out of heaven above,And each night crowned them with the crown of love.Nor till the might of August overheadWeighed on the world was yet one roseleaf shedOf all their joy's warm coronal, nor aughtTouched them in passing ever with a thoughtThat ever this might end on any dayOr any night not love them where they lay;But like a babbling tale of barren breathSeemed all report and rumour held of death,And a false bruit the legend tear impearledThat such a thing as change was in the world.”

“As the dawn loves the sunlight that must ceaseEre dawn again may rise and pass in peace;Must die that she being dead may live again,To be by his new rising nearly slain.So rolls the great wheel of the great world round,And no change in it and no fault is found,And no true life of perdurable breath,And surely no irrevocable death.Day after day night comes that day may break,And day comes back for night’s reiterate sake.Each into each dies, each of each is born:Day past is night, shall night past not be morn?Out of this moonless and faint-hearted nightThat love yet lives in, shall there not be light?Light strong as love, that love may live in yet?Alas, but how shall foolish hope forgetHow all these loving things that kill and dieMeet not but for a breath’s space and pass by?Night is kissed once of dawn and dies, and dayBut touches twilight and is rapt away.So may my love and her love meet once more,And meeting be divided as of yore.Yea, surely as the day-star loves the sunAnd when he hath risen is utterly undone,So is my love of her and hers of me—And its most sweetness bitter as the sea.”

“Ah, had I not taken my life up and given All that life gives and the years let go,The wind and honey, the balm and leaven, The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?Come life, come death, not a word be said;Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?”

“We are not sure of sorrow; and joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure.”

“If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together, In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowerful closes, Green pleasure or grey grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf.”

“Then star nor sun shall waken,Nor any change of light:Nor sound of waters shaken,Nor any sound or sight:Nor wintry leaves nor vernal;Nor days nor things diurnal;Only the sleep eternalIn an eternal night.”

“At the door of life, by the gate of breath,There are worse things waiting for men than death.”

“I am tired of tears and laughter,And men that laugh and weepOf what may come hereafterFor men that sow to reap:I am weary of days and hours,Blown buds of barren flowers,Desires and dreams and powersAnd everything but sleep.”

“But now, you are twain, you are cloven apartFlesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart.”

“Fierce midnights and famishing morrows, And the loves that complete and controlAll the joys of the flesh, all the sorrowsThat wear out the soul.”

“O brother, the gods were good to you.Sleep, and be glad while the worldendures.Be well content as the years wearthrough;Give thanks for life, and the loves andlures;Give thanks for life, O brother, anddeath,For the sweet last sound of her feet, herbreath,For gifts she gave you, gracious andfew,Tears and kisses, that lady of yours.”

“I dare not always touch her, lest the kiss leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss, brief bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin; Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.”

“Before PartingA MONTH or twain to live on honeycombIs pleasant; but one tires of scented time,Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,And that strong purple under juice and foamWhere the wine’s heart has burst;Nor feel the latter kisses like the first.Once yet, this poor one time; I will not prayEven to change the bitterness of it,The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,To make your tears fall where your soft hair layAll blurred and heavy in some perfumed wiseOver my face and eyes.And yet who knows what end the scythèd wheatMakes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red?These were not sown, these are not harvested,They grow a month and are cast under feetAnd none has care thereof,As none has care of a divided love.I know each shadow of your lips by rote,Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows;The fashion of fair temples tremulousWith tender blood, and colour of your throat;I know not how love is gone out of this,Seeing that all was his.Love’s likeness there endures upon all these:But out of these one shall not gather love.Day hath not strength nor the night shade enoughTo make love whole and fill his lips with ease,As some bee-builded cellFeels at filled lips the heavy honey swell.I know not how this last month leaves your hairLess full of purple colour and hid spice,And that luxurious trouble of closed eyesIs mixed with meaner shadow and waste care;And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yetWorth patience to regret.”

“A MatchIf love were what the rose is,And I were like the leaf,Our lives would grow togetherIn sad or singing weather,Blown fields or flowerful closes,Green pasture or gray grief;If love were what the rose is,And I were like the leaf.If I were what the words are,And love were like the tune,With double sound and singleDelight our lips would mingle,With kisses glad as birds areThat get sweet rain at noon;If I were what the words are,And love were like the tune.If you were life, my darling,And I your love were death,We'd shine and snow togetherEre March made sweet the weatherWith daffodil and starlingAnd hours of fruitful breath;If you were life, my darling,And I your love were death.If you were thrall to sorrow,And I were page to joy,We'd play for lives and seasonsWith loving looks and treasonsAnd tears of night and morrowAnd laughs of maid and boy;If you were thrall to sorrow,And I were page to joy.If you were April's lady,And I were lord in May,We'd throw with leaves for hoursAnd draw for days with flowers,Till day like night were shadyAnd night were bright like day;If you were April's lady,And I were lord in May.If you were queen of pleasure,And I were king of pain,We'd hunt down love together,Pluck out his flying-feather,And teach his feet a measure,And find his mouth a rein;If you were queen of pleasure,And I were king of pain.”

“For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.”

“A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away.”

“The half-brained creature to whom books are other than living things may see with the eyes of a bat and draw with the fingers of a mole his dullard's distinction between books and life: those who live the fuller life of a higher animal than he know that books are to poets as much part of that life as pictures are to painters or as music is to musicians, dead matter though they may be to the spiritually still-born children of dirt and dullness who find it possible and natural to live while dead in heart and brain.”

“Cold eyelids that hide like a jewelHard eyes that grow soft for an hour;The heavy white limbs, and the cruelRed mouth like a venomous flower;When these have gone by with their glories,What shall rest of thee then, what remain,O mystic and somber Delores,Our Lady of Pain?”

“Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;/ We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death”

“I dore not always touch her, lest the kissLeave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss,Brief, bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin;Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.”

“You have a face that suits a womanFor her soul's screen--The sort of beauty that's called humanIn hell, Faustine.”

“Ask nothing more of me sweet;All I can give you I give;Heart of my heart were it more,More would be laid at your feet..”

“I wish we were dead together to-day, Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight, Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay,Out of the world's way, out of the light, Out of the ages of worldly weather, Forgotten of all men altogether,As the world's first dead, taken wholly away,Made one with death, filled full of the night.”

“O all fair lovers about the world,There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me. My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirledRound and round in a gulf of the sea;And still, through the sound and the straining stream,Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream,The bright fine lips so cruelly curled, And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free.”

“Though one were strong as seven, He too with death shall dwell,Nor wake with wings in heaven, Nor weep for pains in hell;”

“If you were Queen of pleasure And I were King of painWe'd hunt down Love together,Pluck out his flying-feather,And teach his feet a measure, And find his mouth a rein;If you were Queen of pleasure And I were King of pain.”

“Lying asleep between the strokes of nightI saw my love lean over my sad bed,Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,But perfect-coloured without white or red.And her lips opened amorously, and said--I wist not what, saving one word--Delight. And all her face was honey to my mouth,And all her body pasture to my eyes;The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighsAnd glittering eyelids of my soul's desire.”

“She knows not loves that kissed her She knows not where.Art thou the ghost, my sister, White sister there, Am I the ghost, who knows? My hand, a fallen rose, Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care. ”

“And the best and the worst of this isThat neither is most to blame,If you have forgotten my kissesAnd I have forgotten your name.”

“Today will die tomorrow.”

“From too much love of livingFrom hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.Then star nor sun shall waken,Nor any change of light:Nor sound of waters shaken,Nor any sound or sight:Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,Nor days nor things diurnal;Only the sleep eternalIn an eternal night.”