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Algernon Charles Swinburne
I. WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND
OUTSIDE the garden
The wet skies harden;
The gates are barred on
The summer side:
"Shut out the
flower-time,
Sunbeam and
shower-time;
Make way for our
time,"
Wild winds have cried.
Green once and cheery,
The woods, worn weary,
Sigh as the dreary
Weak sun goes home:
A great wind grapples
The wave, and dapples
The dead green floor of the sea with foam.
Through fell and
moorland,
And salt-sea foreland,
Our noisy norland
Resounds and rings;
Waste waves thereunder
Are blown in sunder,
And winds make thunder
With cloudwide wings;
Sea-drift makes dimmer
The beacon's glimmer;
Nor sail nor swimmer
Can try the tides;
And snowdrifts thicken
Where, when leaves
quicken,
Under the heather the sundew hides.
Green land and red
land,
Moorside and headland,
Are white as dead land,
Are all as one;
Nor honied heather,
Nor bells to gather,
Fair with fair weather
And faithful sun:
Fierce frost has eaten
All flowers that
sweeten
The fells rain-beaten;
And winds their foes
Have made the snow's
bed
Down in the rose-bed;
Deep in the snow's bed bury the rose.
Bury her deeper
Than any sleeper;
Sweet dreams will keep
her
All day, all night;
Though sleep benumb her
And time o'ercome her,
She dreams of summer,
And takes delight,
Dreaming and sleeping
In love's good keeping,
While rain is weeping
And no leaves cling;
Winds will come
bringing her
Comfort, and singing
her
Stories and songs and good news of the spring.
Draw the white curtain
Close, and be certain
She takes no hurt in
Her soft low bed;
She feels no colder,
And grows not older,
Though snows enfold her
From foot to head;
She turns not chilly
Like weed and lily
In marsh or hilly
High watershed,
Or green soft island
In lakes of highland;
She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead
For all the hours,
Come sun, come showers,
Are friends of flowers,
And
fairies all;
When frost entrapped
her,
They came and lapped
her
In leaves, and wrapped
her
With
shroud and pall;
In red leaves wound
her,
With dead leaves bound
her
Dead brows, and round
her
A
death-knell rang;
Rang the death-bell for
her,
Sang, "is it well
for her,
Well, is it well with you, rose?" they sang.
O what and where is
The rose now, fairies,
So shrill the air is,
So
wild the sky?
Poor last of roses,
Her worst of woes is
The noise she knows is
The
winter's cry;
His hunting hollo
Has scared the swallow;
Fain would she follow
And
fain would fly:
But wind unsettles
Her poor last petals;
Had she but wings, and she would not die.
Come, as you love her,
Come close and cover
Her white face over,
And
forth again
Ere sunset glances
On foam that dances,
Through lowering lances
Of
bright white rain;
And make your playtime
Of winter's daytime,
As if the Maytime
Were
here to sing;
As if the snowballs
Were soft like
blowballs,
Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring.
Each reed that grows in
Our stream is frozen,
The fields it flows in
Are
hard and black;
The water-fairy
Waits wise and wary
Till time shall vary
And
thaws come back.
"O sister,
water,"
The wind besought her,
"O twin-born
daughter
Of
spring with me,
Stay with me, play with
me,
Take the warm way with
me,
Straight for the summer and oversea."
But winds will vary,
And wise and wary
The patient fairy
Of
water waits;
All shrunk and wizen,
In iron prison,
Till spring re-risen
Unbar
the gates;
Till, as with clamor
Of axe and hammer,
Chained streams that
stammer
And
struggle in straits
Burst bonds that
shiver,
And thaws deliver
The roaring river in stormy spates.
In fierce March weather
White waves break
tether,
And whirled together
At
either hand,
Like weeds uplifted,
The tree-trunks rifted
In spars are drifted,
Like
foam or sand,
Past swamp and sallow
And reed-beds callow,
Through pool and
shallow,
To
wind and lee,
Till, no more
tongue-tied,
Full flood and young
tide
Roar down the rapids and storm the sea.
As men's cheeks faded
On shores invaded,
When shorewards waded
The
lords of fight;
When churl and craven
Saw hard on haven
The wide-winged raven
At
mainmast height;
When monks affrighted
To windward sighted
The birds full-flighted
Of
swift sea-kings;
So earth turns paler
When Storm the sailor
Steers in with a roar in the race of his wings.
O strong sea-sailor,
Whose cheek turns paler
For wind or hail or
For
fear of thee?
O far sea-farer,
O thunder-bearer,
Thy songs are rarer
Than
soft songs be.
O fleet-foot stranger,
O north-sea ranger
Through days of danger
And
ways of fear,
Blow thy horn here for
us,
Blow the sky clear for
us,
Send us the song of the sea to hear.
Roll the strong stream
of it
Up, till the scream of
it
Wake from a dream of it
Children
that sleep,
Seamen that fare for
them
Forth, with a prayer
for them:
Shall not God care for
them
Angels
not keep?
Spare not the surges
Thy stormy scourges;
Spare us the dirges
Of
wives that weep.
Turn back the waves for
us:
Dig no fresh graves for
us,
Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.
O stout north-easter,
Sea-king, land-waster,
For all thine haste, or
Thy
stormy skill,
Yet hadst thou never,
For all endeavour,
Strength to dissever
Or
strength to spill,
Save of his giving
Who gave our living,
Whose hands are weaving
What
ours fulfil;
Whose feet tread under
The storms and thunder;
Who made our wonder to work his will.
His years and hours,
His world's blind
powers,
His stars and flowers,
His
nights and days,
Sea-tide and river,
And waves that shiver,
Praise God, the giver
Of
tongues to praise.
Winds in their blowing,
And fruits in growing;
Time in its going,
While
time shall be;
In death and living,
With one thanksgiving,
Praise him whose hand is the strength of the sea.
II. SPRING IN TUSCANY
ROSE-RED lilies that bloom on the banner;
Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring;
Rose-mouthed acacias
that laugh as they climb,
Like
plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan her
With wind more soft than a wild dove's wing,
What do they sing in
the spring of their time
If this be the rose
that the world hears singing,
Soft
in the soft night, loud in the day,
Songs
for the fireflies to dance as they hear;
If that be the song of
the nightingale, springing
Forth
in the form of a rose in May,
What
do they say of the way of the year?
What of the way of the
world gone Maying,
What
of the work of the buds in the bowers,
What
of the will of the wind on the wall,
Fluttering the
wall-flowers, sighing and playing,
Shrinking
again as a bird that cowers,
Thinking
of hours when the flowers have to fall?
Out of the throats of
the loud birds showering,
Out
of the folds where the flag-lilies leap,
Out
of the mouths of the roses stirred,
Out of the herbs on the
walls reflowering,
Out
of the heights where the sheer snows sleep,
Out
of the deep and the steep, one word.
One from the lips of
the lily-flames leaping,
The
glad red lilies that burn in our sight,
The
great live lilies for standard and crown;
One from the steeps
where the pines stand sleeping,
One
from the deep land, one from the height,
One
from the light and the might of the town.
The lowlands laugh with
delight of the highlands,
Whence
May winds feed them with balm and breath
From
hills that beheld in the years behind
A shape as of one from
the blest souls' islands,
Made
fair by a soul too fair for death,
With
eyes on the light that should smite them blind.
Vallombrosa remotely
remembers,
Perchance,
what still to us seems so near
That
time not darkens it, change not mars,
The foot that she knew
when her leaves were September's,
The
face lift up to the star-blind seer,
That
saw from his prison arisen his stars.
And Pisa broods on her
dead, not mourning,
For
love of her loveliness given them in fee;
And
Prato gleams with the glad monk's gift
Whose hand was there as
the hand of morning;
And
Siena, set in the sand's red sea,
Lifts
loftier her head than the red sand's drift.
And far to the fair
south-westward lightens,
Girdled
and sandalled and plumed with flowers,
At
sunset over the love-lit lands,
The hill-side's crown
where the wild hill brightens,
Saint
Fina's town of the Beautiful Towers,
Hailing
the sun with a hundred hands.
Land of us all that
have loved thee dearliest,
Mother
of men that were lords of man,
Whose
name in the world's heart work a spell
My last song's light,
and the star of mine earliest,
As
we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for a span,
Fare
well we may not who say farewell.
III . SUMMER IN AUVERGNE
THE sundawn fills the land
Full as a feaster's hand
Fills full with bloom of bland
Bright wine his cup;
Flows full to flood that fills
From the arch of air it thrills
Those rust-red iron hills
With morning up.
Dawn, as a panther springs,
With fierce and fire-fledged wings
Leaps on the land that rings
From her bright feet
Through all its lava-black
Cones that cast answer back
And cliffs of footless track
Where thunders meet.
The light speaks wide and loud
From deeps blown clean of cloud
As though day's heart were proud
And heaven's were glad;
The towers brown-striped and grey
Take fire from heaven of day
As though the prayers they pray
Their answers had.
Higher in these high first hours
Wax all the keen church towers,
And higher all hearts of ours
Than
the old hills' crown,
Higher than the pillared height
Of that strange cliff-side bright
With basalt towers whose might
Strong time bows down.
And the old fierce ruin there
Of the old wild princes' lair
Whose blood in mine hath share
Gapes gaunt and great
Toward heaven that long ago
Watched all the wan land's woe
Whereon the wind would blow
Of their bleak hate.
Dead are those deeds; but yet
Their memory seems to fret
Lands that might else forget
That
old world's brand;
Dead all their sins and days;
Yet in this red clime's rays
Some fiery memory stays
That
sears their land.
IV. AUTUMN IN CORNWALL
THE year lies fallen and faded
On cliffs by clouds invaded,
With tongues of storms upbraided,
With
wrath of waves bedinned;
And inland, wild with warning,
As in deaf ears or scorning,
The clarion even and morning
Rings
of the south-west wind.
The wild bents wane and wither
In blasts whose breath bows hither
Their grey-grown heads and thither,
Unblest
of rain or sun;
The pale fierce heavens are crowded
With shapes like dreams beclouded,
As though the old year enshrouded
Lay,
long ere life were done.
Full-charged with oldworld wonders,
From dusk Tintagel thunders
A note that smites and sunders
The
hard frore fields of air;
A trumpet stormier-sounded
Than once from lists rebounded
When strong men sense-confounded
Fell
thick in tourney there.
From scarce a duskier dwelling
Such notes of wail rose welling
Through the outer darkness, telling
In
the awful singer's ears
What souls the darkness covers,
What love-lost souls of lovers,
Whose cry still hangs and hovers
In
each man's born that hears.
For there by Hector's brother
And yet some thousand other
He that had grief to mother
Passed
pale from Dante's sight;
With one fast linked as fearless,
Perchance, there only tearless;
Iseult and Tristram, peerless
And
perfect queen and knight.
A shrill-winged sound comes flying
North, as of wild souls crying
The cry of things undying,
That
know what life must be;
Or as the old year's heart, stricken
Too sore for hope to quicken
By thoughts like thorns that thicken,
Broke,
breaking with the sea.
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