In the darkening and whitening Abysses adored, With dayspring and lightning For lamp and for sword, G.o.d thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of the Lord.
O my sons, O too dutiful Toward G.o.ds not of me, Was not I enough beautiful?
Was it hard to be free?
For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now and see.
Lo, wing"d with world"s wonders, With miracles shod, With the fires of his thunders For raiment and rod, G.o.d trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror of G.o.d.
For his twilight is come on him, His anguish is here; And his spirits gaze dumb on him, Grown gray from his fear; And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infinite year.
Thought made him and breaks him, Truth slays and forgives; But to you, as time takes him, This new thing it gives, Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.
For truth only is living, Truth only is whole, And the love of his giving Man"s polestar and pole; Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul.
One birth of my bosom; One beam of mine eye; One topmost blossom That scales the sky; Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I.
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 1837-1909
810. Ave atque Vale (IN MEMORY OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE)
SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?
Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea, Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel, Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave, Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before, Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat And full of bitter summer, but more sweet To thee than gleanings of a northern sh.o.r.e Trod by no tropic feet?
For always thee the fervid languid glories Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies; Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs Where the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories, The barren kiss of piteous wave to wave That knows not where is that Leucadian grave Which hides too deep the supreme head of song.
Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were, The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear Hither and thither, and vex and work her wrong, Blind G.o.ds that cannot spare.
Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother, Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us: Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous, Bare to thy subtler eye, but for none other Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in clime; The hidden harvest of luxurious time, Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech; And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep; And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each, Seeing as men sow men reap.
O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping, That were athirst for sleep and no more life And no more love, for peace and no more strife!
Now the dim G.o.ds of death have in their keeping Spirit and body and all the springs of song, Is it well now where love can do no wrong, Where stingless pleasure has no foam or fang Behind the unopening closure of her lips?
Is it not well where soul from body slips And flesh from bone divides without a pang As dew from flower-bell drips?
It is enough; the end and the beginning Are one thing to thee, who art past the end.
O hand unclasp"d of unbeholden friend, For thee no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning, No triumph and no labour and no l.u.s.t, Only dead yew-leaves and a little dust.
O quiet eyes wherein the light saith naught, Whereto the day is dumb, nor any night With obscure finger silences your sight, Nor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought, Sleep, and have sleep for light.
Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over, Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet, Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet Of some pale t.i.tan-woman like a lover, Such as thy vision here solicited, Under the shadow of her fair vast head, The deep division of prodigious b.r.e.a.s.t.s, The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep, The weight of awful tresses that still keep The savour and shade of old-world pine-forests Where the wet hill-winds weep?
Hast thou found any likeness for thy vision?
O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom, Hast thou found sown, what gather"d in the gloom?
What of despair, of rapture, of derision, What of life is there, what of ill or good?
Are the fruits gray like dust or bright like blood?
Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours, The faint fields quicken any terrene root, In low lands where the sun and moon are mute And all the stars keep silence? Are there flowers At all, or any fruit?
Alas, but though my flying song flies after, O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet, Some dim derision of mysterious laughter From the blind tongueless warders of the dead, Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine"s veil"d head, Some little sound of unregarded tears Wept by effaced unprofitable eyes, And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs-- These only, these the hearkening spirit hears, Sees only such things rise.
Thou art far too far for wings of words to follow, Far too far off for thought or any prayer.
What ails us with thee, who art wind and air?
What ails us gazing where all seen is hollow?
Yet with some fancy, yet with some desire, Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire, Our dreams pursue our dead and do not find.
Still, and more swift than they, the thin flame flies, The low light fails us in elusive skies, Still the foil"d earnest ear is deaf, and blind Are still the eluded eyes.
Not thee, O never thee, in all time"s changes, Not thee, but this the sound of thy sad soul, The shadow of thy swift spirit, this shut scroll I lay my hand on, and not death estranges My spirit from communion of thy song-- These memories and these melodies that throng Veil"d porches of a Muse funereal-- These I salute, these touch, these clasp and fold As though a hand were in my hand to hold, Or through mine ears a mourning musical Of many mourners roll"d.
I among these, I also, in such station As when the pyre was charr"d, and piled the sods.
And offering to the dead made, and their G.o.ds, The old mourners had, standing to make libation, I stand, and to the G.o.ds and to the dead Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed Offering to these unknown, the G.o.ds of gloom, And what of honey and spice my seed-lands bear, And what I may of fruits in this chill"d air, And lay, Orestes-like, across the tomb A curl of sever"d hair.
But by no hand nor any treason stricken, Not like the low-lying head of Him, the King, The flame that made of Troy a ruinous thing, Thou liest and on this dust no tears could quicken.
There fall no tears like theirs that all men hear Fall tear by sweet imperishable tear Down the opening leaves of holy poets" pages.
Thee not Orestes, not Electra mourns; But bending us-ward with memorial urns The most high Muses that fulfil all ages Weep, and our G.o.d"s heart yearns.
For, sparing of his sacred strength, not often Among us darkling here the lord of light Makes manifest his music and his might In hearts that open and in lips that soften With the soft flame and heat of songs that shine.
Thy lips indeed he touch"d with bitter wine, And nourish"d them indeed with bitter bread; Yet surely from his hand thy soul"s food came, The fire that scarr"d thy spirit at his flame Was lighted, and thine hungering heart he fed Who feeds our hearts with fame.
Therefore he too now at thy soul"s sunsetting, G.o.d of all suns and songs, he too bends down To mix his laurel with thy cypress crown, And save thy dust from blame and from forgetting.
Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art, Compa.s.sionate, with sad and sacred heart, Mourns thee of many his children the last dead, And hollows with strange tears and alien sighs Thine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes, And over thine irrevocable head Sheds light from the under skies.
And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean, And stains with tears her changing bosom chill; That obscure Venus of the hollow hill, That thing transform"d which was the Cytherean, With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine Long since, and face no more call"d Erycine-- A ghost, a bitter and luxurious G.o.d.
Thee also with fair flesh and singing spell Did she, a sad and second prey, compel Into the footless places once more trod, And shadows hot from h.e.l.l.
And now no sacred staff shall break in blossom, No choral salutation lure to light A spirit sick with perfume and sweet night And love"s tired eyes and hands and barren bosom.
There is no help for these things; none to mend, And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend, Will make death clear or make life durable.
Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vine And with wild notes about this dust of thine At least I fill the place where white dreams dwell And wreathe an unseen shrine.
Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.
Out of the mystic and the mournful garden Where all day through thine hands in barren braid Wove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade, Green buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants gray, Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted, Pa.s.sions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started, Shall death not bring us all as thee one day Among the days departed?
For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother, Take at my hands this garland, and farewell.
Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell, And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother, With sadder than the Niobean womb, And in the hollow of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s a tomb.
Content thee, howsoe"er, whose days are done; There lies not any troublous thing before, Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more, For whom all winds are quiet as the sun, All waters as the sh.o.r.e.
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 1837-1909
811. 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?
What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?
What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?
O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow, Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south, The soft south whither thine heart is set?
Shall not the grief of the old time follow?
Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?
Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?