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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18287-8.txt b/18287-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9934de --- /dev/null +++ b/18287-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2613 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode, by +Algernon Charles Swinburne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode + Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles + Swinburne--Vol. III + +Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne + +Release Date: April 30, 2006 [EBook #18287] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Diane Monico, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES + +BIRTHDAY ODE + +Taken from +THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS +OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, +VOL. III + +By + +Algernon Charles Swinburne + + + + +SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS + +I. POEMS AND BALLADS (First Series). + +II. SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE, AND SONGS OF TWO NATIONS. + +III. POEMS AND BALLADS (Second and Third + Series), and SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES. + +IV. TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE, THE TALE OF BALEN, + ATALANTA IN CALYDON, ERECHTHEUS. + +V. STUDIES IN SONG, A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS, SONNETS + ON ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS, THE HEPTALOGIA, ETC. + +VI. A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY, ASTROPHEL, A CHANNEL PASSAGE + AND OTHER POEMS. + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + + + +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES + +BIRTHDAY ODE + +By + +Algernon Charles Swinburne + +1917 + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + + + +_First printed (Chatto), 1904_ + +_Reprinted 1904, '09, '10, '12_ + +_(Heinemann), 1917_ + +_London: William Heinemann, 1917_ + + + + +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES + + +TO EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNY 293 + +THALASSIUS 295 + +ON THE CLIFFS 311 + +THE GARDEN OF CYMODOCE 326 + +BIRTHDAY ODE 341 + +NOTES 359 + + + + +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES + + + + +DEDICATION + +TO EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNY + + +_A sea-mew on a sea-king's wrist alighting, + As the north sea-wind caught and strained and curled +The raven-figured flag that led men fighting + From field to green field of the water-world, +Might find such brief high favour at his hand + For wings imbrued with brine, with foam impearled, +As these my songs require at yours on land, + That durst not save for love's free sake require, +Being lightly born between the foam and sand, + But reared by hope and memory and desire +Of lives that were and life that is to be, + Even such as filled his heavenlier song with fire +Whose very voice, that sang to set man free, + Was in your ears as ever in ours his lyre, +Once, ere the flame received him from the sea._ + + + + +THALASSIUS + + +Upon the flowery forefront of the year, +One wandering by the grey-green April sea +Found on a reach of shingle and shallower sand +Inlaid with starrier glimmering jewellery +Left for the sun's love and the light wind's cheer +Along the foam-flowered strand +Breeze-brightened, something nearer sea than land +Though the last shoreward blossom-fringe was near, +A babe asleep with flower-soft face that gleamed +To sun and seaward as it laughed and dreamed, +Too sure of either love for either's fear, +Albeit so birdlike slight and light, it seemed +Nor man nor mortal child of man, but fair +As even its twin-born tenderer spray-flowers were, +That the wind scatters like an Oread's hair. + + For when July strewed fire on earth and sea +The last time ere that year, +Out of the flame of morn Cymothoe +Beheld one brighter than the sunbright sphere +Move toward her from its fieriest heart, whence trod +The live sun's very God, +Across the foam-bright water-ways that are +As heavenlier heavens with star for answering star, +And on her eyes and hair and maiden mouth +Felt a kiss falling fierier than the South +And heard above afar +A noise of songs and wind-enamoured wings +And lutes and lyres of milder and mightier strings, +And round the resonant radiance of his car +Where depth is one with height, +Light heard as music, music seen as light. +And with that second moondawn of the spring's +That fosters the first rose, +A sun-child whiter than the sunlit snows +Was born out of the world of sunless things +That round the round earth flows and ebbs and flows. + + But he that found the sea-flower by the sea +And took to foster like a graft of earth +Was born of man's most highest and heavenliest birth, +Free-born as winds and stars and waves are free; +A warrior grey with glories more than years, +Though more of years than change the quick to dead +Had rained their light and darkness on his head; +A singer that in time's and memory's ears +Should leave such words to sing as all his peers +Might praise with hallowing heat of rapturous tears +Till all the days of human flight were fled. +And at his knees his fosterling was fed +Not with man's wine and bread +Nor mortal mother-milk of hopes and fears, +But food of deep memorial days long sped; +For bread with wisdom and with song for wine +Clear as the full calm's emerald hyaline. +And from his grave glad lips the boy would gather +Fine honey of song-notes goldener than gold, +More sweet than bees make of the breathing heather, +That he, as glad and bold, +Might drink as they, and keep his spirit from cold. +And the boy loved his laurel-laden hair +As his own father's risen on the eastern air, +And that less white brow-binding bayleaf bloom +More than all flowers his father's eyes relume; +And those high songs he heard, +More than all notes of any landward bird, +More than all sounds less free +Than the wind's quiring to the choral sea. + + High things the high song taught him; how the breath +Too frail for life may be more strong than death; +And this poor flash of sense in life, that gleams +As a ghost's glory in dreams, +More stabile than the world's own heart's root seems, +By that strong faith of lordliest love which gives +To death's own sightless-seeming eyes a light +Clearer, to death's bare bones a verier might, +Than shines or strikes from any man that lives. +How he that loves life overmuch shall die +The dog's death, utterly: +And he that much less loves it than he hates +All wrongdoing that is done +Anywhere always underneath the sun +Shall live a mightier life than time's or fate's. +One fairer thing he shewed him, and in might +More strong than day and night +Whose strengths build up time's towering period: +Yea, one thing stronger and more high than God, +Which if man had not, then should God not be: +And that was Liberty. +And gladly should man die to gain, he said, +Freedom; and gladlier, having lost, lie dead. +For man's earth was not, nor the sweet sea-waves +His, nor his own land, nor its very graves, +Except they bred not, bore not, hid not slaves: +But all of all that is, +Were one man free in body and soul, were his. + + And the song softened, even as heaven by night +Softens, from sunnier down to starrier light, +And with its moonbright breath +Blessed life for death's sake, and for life's sake death. +Till as the moon's own beam and breath confuse +In one clear hueless haze of glimmering hues +The sea's line and the land's line and the sky's, +And light for love of darkness almost dies, +As darkness only lives for light's dear love, +Whose hands the web of night is woven of, +So in that heaven of wondrous words were life +And death brought out of strife; +Yea, by that strong spell of serene increase +Brought out of strife to peace. + + And the song lightened, as the wind at morn +Flashes, and even with lightning of the wind +Night's thick-spun web is thinned +And all its weft unwoven and overworn +Shrinks, as might love from scorn. +And as when wind and light on water and land +Leap as twin gods from heavenward hand in hand, +And with the sound and splendour of their leap +Strike darkness dead, and daunt the spirit of sleep, +And burn it up with fire; +So with the light that lightened from the lyre +Was all the bright heat in the child's heart stirred +And blown with blasts of music into flame +Till even his sense became +Fire, as the sense that fires the singing bird +Whose song calls night by name. +And in the soul within the sense began +The manlike passion of a godlike man, +And in the sense within the soul again +Thoughts that make men of gods and gods of men. + + For love the high song taught him: love that turns +God's heart toward man as man's to Godward; love +That life and death and life are fashioned of, +From the first breath that burns +Half kindled on the flowerlike yeanling's lip, +So light and faint that life seems like to slip, +To that yet weaklier drawn +When sunset dies of night's devouring dawn. +But the man dying not wholly as all men dies +If aught be left of his in live men's eyes +Out of the dawnless dark of death to rise; +If aught of deed or word +Be seen for all time or of all time heard. +Love, that though body and soul were overthrown +Should live for love's sake of itself alone, +Though spirit and flesh were one thing doomed and dead, +Not wholly annihilated. +Seeing even the hoariest ash-flake that the pyre +Drops, and forgets the thing was once afire +And gave its heart to feed the pile's full flame +Till its own heart its own heat overcame, +Outlives its own life, though by scarce a span, +As such men dying outlive themselves in man, +Outlive themselves for ever; if the heat +Outburn the heart that kindled it, the sweet +Outlast the flower whose soul it was, and flit +Forth of the body of it +Into some new shape of a strange perfume +More potent than its light live spirit of bloom, +How shall not something of that soul relive, +That only soul that had such gifts to give +As lighten something even of all men's doom +Even from the labouring womb +Even to the seal set on the unopening tomb? +And these the loving light of song and love +Shall wrap and lap round and impend above, +Imperishable; and all springs born illume +Their sleep with brighter thoughts than wake the dove +To music, when the hillside winds resume +The marriage-song of heather-flower and broom +And all the joy thereof. + + And hate the song too taught him: hate of all +That brings or holds in thrall +Of spirit or flesh, free-born ere God began, +The holy body and sacred soul of man. +And wheresoever a curse was or a chain, +A throne for torment or a crown for bane +Rose, moulded out of poor men's molten pain, +There, said he, should man's heaviest hate be set +Inexorably, to faint not or forget +Till the last warmth bled forth of the last vein +In flesh that none should call a king's again, +Seeing wolves and dogs and birds that plague-strike air +Leave the last bone of all the carrion bare. + + And hope the high song taught him: hope whose eyes +Can sound the seas unsoundable, the skies +Inaccessible of eyesight; that can see +What earth beholds not, hear what wind and sea +Hear not, and speak what all these crying in one +Can speak not to the sun. +For in her sovereign eyelight all things are +Clear as the closest seen and kindlier star +That marries morn and even and winter and spring +With one love's golden ring. +For she can see the days of man, the birth +Of good and death of evil things on earth +Inevitable and infinite, and sure +As present pain is, or herself is pure. +Yea, she can hear and see, beyond all things +That lighten from before Time's thunderous wings +Through the awful circle of wheel-winged periods, +The tempest of the twilight of all Gods: +And higher than all the circling course they ran +The sundawn of the spirit that was man. + + And fear the song too taught him; fear to be +Worthless the dear love of the wind and sea +That bred him fearless, like a sea-mew reared +In rocks of man's foot feared, +Where nought of wingless life may sing or shine. +Fear to wax worthless of that heaven he had +When all the life in all his limbs was glad +And all the drops in all his veins were wine +And all the pulses music; when his heart, +Singing, bade heaven and wind and sea bear part +In one live song's reiterance, and they bore: +Fear to go crownless of the flower he wore +When the winds loved him and the waters knew, +The blithest life that clove their blithe life through +With living limbs exultant, or held strife +More amorous than all dalliance aye anew +With the bright breath and strength of their large life, +With all strong wrath of all sheer winds that blew, +All glories of all storms of the air that fell +Prone, ineluctable, +With roar from heaven of revel, and with hue +As of a heaven turned hell. +For when the red blast of their breath had made +All heaven aflush with light more dire than shade, +He felt it in his blood and eyes and hair +Burn as if all the fires of the earth and air +Had laid strong hold upon his flesh, and stung +The soul behind it as with serpent's tongue, +Forked like the loveliest lightnings: nor could bear +But hardly, half distraught with strong delight, +The joy that like a garment wrapped him round +And lapped him over and under +With raiment of great light +And rapture of great sound +At every loud leap earthward of the thunder +From heaven's most furthest bound: +So seemed all heaven in hearing and in sight, +Alive and mad with glory and angry joy, +That something of its marvellous mirth and might +Moved even to madness, fledged as even for flight, +The blood and spirit of one but mortal boy. + + So, clothed with love and fear that love makes great, +And armed with hope and hate, +He set first foot upon the spring-flowered ways +That all feet pass and praise. +And one dim dawn between the winter and spring, +In the sharp harsh wind harrying heaven and earth +To put back April that had borne his birth +From sunward on her sunniest shower-struck wing, +With tears and laughter for the dew-dropt thing, +Slight as indeed a dew-drop, by the sea +One met him lovelier than all men may be, +God-featured, with god's eyes; and in their might +Somewhat that drew men's own to mar their sight, +Even of all eyes drawn toward him: and his mouth +Was as the very rose of all men's youth, +One rose of all the rose-beds in the world: +But round his brows the curls were snakes that curled, +And like his tongue a serpent's; and his voice +Speaks death, and bids rejoice. +Yet then he spake no word, seeming as dumb, +A dumb thing mild and hurtless; nor at first +From his bowed eyes seemed any light to come, +Nor his meek lips for blood or tears to thirst: +But as one blind and mute in mild sweet wise +Pleading for pity of piteous lips and eyes, +He strayed with faint bare lily-lovely feet +Helpless, and flowerlike sweet: +Nor might man see, not having word hereof, +That this of all gods was the great god Love. + + And seeing him lovely and like a little child +That wellnigh wept for wonder that it smiled +And was so feeble and fearful, with soft speech +The youth bespake him softly; but there fell +From the sweet lips no sweet word audible +That ear or thought might reach: +No sound to make the dim cold silence glad, +No breath to thaw the hard harsh air with heat; +Only the saddest smile of all things sweet, +Only the sweetest smile of all things sad. + + And so they went together one green way +Till April dying made free the world for May; +And on his guide suddenly Love's face turned, +And in his blind eyes burned +Hard light and heat of laughter; and like flame +That opens in a mountain's ravening mouth +To blear and sear the sunlight from the south, +His mute mouth opened, and his first word came: +'Knowest thou me now by name?' +And all his stature waxed immeasurable, +As of one shadowing heaven and lightening hell; +And statelier stood he than a tower that stands +And darkens with its darkness far-off sands +Whereon the sky leans red; +And with a voice that stilled the winds he said: +'I am he that was thy lord before thy birth, +I am he that is thy lord till thou turn earth: +I make the night more dark, and all the morrow +Dark as the night whose darkness was my breath: +O fool, my name is sorrow; +Thou fool, my name is death.' + + And he that heard spake not, and looked right on +Again, and Love was gone. + + Through many a night toward many a wearier day +His spirit bore his body down its way. +Through many a day toward many a wearier night +His soul sustained his sorrows in her sight. +And earth was bitter, and heaven, and even the sea +Sorrowful even as he. +And the wind helped not, and the sun was dumb; +And with too long strong stress of grief to be +His heart grew sere and numb. + + And one bright eve ere summer in autumn sank +At stardawn standing on a grey sea-bank +He felt the wind fitfully shift and heave +As toward a stormier eve; +And all the wan wide sea shuddered; and earth +Shook underfoot as toward some timeless birth, +Intolerable and inevitable; and all +Heaven, darkling, trembled like a stricken thrall. +And far out of the quivering east, and far +From past the moonrise and its guiding star, +Began a noise of tempest and a light +That was not of the lightning; and a sound +Rang with it round and round +That was not of the thunder; and a flight +As of blown clouds by night, +That was not of them; and with songs and cries +That sang and shrieked their soul out at the skies +A shapeless earthly storm of shapes began +From all ways round to move in on the man, +Clamorous against him silent; and their feet +Were as the wind's are fleet, +And their shrill songs were as wild birds' are sweet. + + And as when all the world of earth was wronged +And all the host of all men driven afoam +By the red hand of Rome, +Round some fierce amphitheatre overthronged +With fair clear faces full of bloodier lust +Than swells and stings the tiger when his mood +Is fieriest after blood +And drunk with trampling of the murderous must +That soaks and stains the tortuous close-coiled wood +Made monstrous with its myriad-mustering brood, +Face by fair face panted and gleamed and pressed, +And breast by passionate breast +Heaved hot with ravenous rapture, as they quaffed +The red ripe full fume of the deep live draught, +The sharp quick reek of keen fresh bloodshed, blown +Through the dense deep drift up to the emperor's throne +From the under steaming sands +With clamour of all-applausive throats and hands, +Mingling in mirthful time +With shrill blithe mockeries of the lithe-limbed mime: +So from somewhence far forth of the unbeholden, +Dreadfully driven from over and after and under, +Fierce, blown through fifes of brazen blast and golden, +With sound of chiming waves that drown the thunder +Or thunder that strikes dumb the sea's own chimes, +Began the bellowing of the bull-voiced mimes, +Terrible; firs bowed down as briars or palms +Even at the breathless blast as of a breeze +Fulfilled with clamour and clangour and storms of psalms; +Red hands rent up the roots of old-world trees, +Thick flames of torches tossed as tumbling seas +Made mad the moonless and infuriate air +That, ravening, revelled in the riotous hair +And raiment of the furred Bassarides. + + So came all those in on him; and his heart, +As out of sleep suddenly struck astart, +Danced, and his flesh took fire of theirs, and grief +Was as a last year's leaf +Blown dead far down the wind's way; and he set +His pale mouth to the brightest mouth it met +That laughed for love against his lips, and bade +Follow; and in following all his blood grew glad +And as again a sea-bird's; for the wind +Took him to bathe him deep round breast and brow +Not as it takes a dead leaf drained and thinned, +But as the brightest bay-flower blown on bough, +Set springing toward it singing: and they rode +By many a vine-leafed, many a rose-hung road, +Exalt with exultation; many a night +Set all its stars upon them as for spies +On many a moon-bewildering mountain-height +Where he rode only by the fierier light +Of his dread lady's hot sweet hungering eyes. +For the moon wandered witless of her way, +Spell-stricken by strong magic in such wise +As wizards use to set the stars astray. +And in his ears the music that makes mad +Beat always; and what way the music bade, +That alway rode he; nor was any sleep +His, nor from height nor deep. +But heaven was as red iron, slumberless, +And had no heart to bless; +And earth lay sere and darkling as distraught, +And help in her was nought. + + Then many a midnight, many a morn and even, +His mother, passing forth of her fair heaven, +With goodlier gifts than all save gods can give +From earth or from the heaven where sea-things live, +With shine of sea-flowers through the bay-leaf braid +Woven for a crown her foam-white hands had made +To crown him with land's laurel and sea-dew, +Sought the sea-bird that was her boy: but he +Sat panther-throned beside Erigone, +Riding the red ways of the revel through +Midmost of pale-mouthed passion's crownless crew. +Till on some winter's dawn of some dim year +He let the vine-bit on the panther's lip +Slide, and the green rein slip, +And set his eyes to seaward, nor gave ear +If sound from landward hailed him, dire or dear; +And passing forth of all those fair fierce ranks +Back to the grey sea-banks, +Against a sea-rock lying, aslant the steep, +Fell after many sleepless dreams on sleep. + + And in his sleep the dun green light was shed +Heavily round his head +That through the veil of sea falls fathom-deep, +Blurred like a lamp's that when the night drops dead +Dies; and his eyes gat grace of sleep to see +The deep divine dark dayshine of the sea, +Dense water-walls and clear dusk water-ways, +Broad-based, or branching as a sea-flower sprays +That side or this dividing; and anew +The glory of all her glories that he knew. +And in sharp rapture of recovering tears +He woke on fire with yearnings of old years, +Pure as one purged of pain that passion bore, +Ill child of bitter mother; for his own +Looked laughing toward him from her midsea throne, +Up toward him there ashore. + + Thence in his heart the great same joy began, +Of child that made him man: +And turned again from all hearts else on quest, +He communed with his own heart, and had rest. +And like sea-winds upon loud waters ran +His days and dreams together, till the joy +Burned in him of the boy. +Till the earth's great comfort and the sweet sea's breath +Breathed and blew life in where was heartless death, +Death spirit-stricken of soul-sick days, where strife +Of thought and flesh made mock of death and life. +And grace returned upon him of his birth +Where heaven was mixed with heavenlike sea and earth; +And song shot forth strong wings that took the sun +From inward, fledged with might of sorrow and mirth +And father's fire made mortal in his son. +Nor was not spirit of strength in blast and breeze +To exalt again the sun's child and the sea's; +For as wild mares in Thessaly grow great +With child of ravishing winds, that violate +Their leaping length of limb with manes like fire +And eyes outburning heaven's +With fires more violent than the lightning levin's +And breath drained out and desperate of desire, +Even so the spirit in him, when winds grew strong, +Grew great with child of song. +Nor less than when his veins first leapt for joy +To draw delight in such as burns a boy, +Now too the soul of all his senses felt +The passionate pride of deep sea-pulses dealt +Through nerve and jubilant vein +As from the love and largess of old time, +And with his heart again +The tidal throb of all the tides keep rhyme +And charm him from his own soul's separate sense +With infinite and invasive influence +That made strength sweet in him and sweetness strong, +Being now no more a singer, but a song. + + Till one clear day when brighter sea-wind blew +And louder sea-shine lightened, for the waves +Were full of godhead and the light that saves, +His father's, and their spirit had pierced him through, +He felt strange breath and light all round him shed +That bowed him down with rapture; and he knew +His father's hand, hallowing his humbled head, +And the old great voice of the old good time, that said: + + "Child of my sunlight and the sea, from birth +A fosterling and fugitive on earth; +Sleepless of soul as wind or wave or fire, +A manchild with an ungrown God's desire; +Because thou hast loved nought mortal more than me, +Thy father, and thy mother-hearted sea; +Because thou hast set thine heart to sing, and sold +Life and life's love for song, God's living gold; +Because thou hast given thy flower and fire of youth +To feed men's hearts with visions, truer than truth; +Because thou hast kept in those world-wandering eyes +The light that makes me music of the skies; +Because thou hast heard with world-unwearied ears +The music that puts light into the spheres; +Have therefore in thine heart and in thy mouth +The sound of song that mingles north and south, +The song of all the winds that sing of me, +And in thy soul the sense of all the sea." + + + + +ON THE CLIFFS + +[Greek: imerophônos aêdôn.] + + SAPPHO. + + +Between the moondawn and the sundown here +The twilight hangs half starless; half the sea +Still quivers as for love or pain or fear +Or pleasure mightier than these all may be +A man's live heart might beat +Wherein a God's with mortal blood should meet +And fill its pulse too full to bear the strain +With fear or love or pleasure's twin-born, pain. +Fiercely the gaunt woods to the grim soil cling +That bears for all fair fruits +Wan wild sparse flowers of windy and wintry spring +Between the tortive serpent-shapen roots +Wherethrough their dim growth hardly strikes and shoots +And shews one gracious thing +Hardly, to speak for summer one sweet word +Of summer's self scarce heard. +But higher the steep green sterile fields, thick-set +With flowerless hawthorn even to the upward verge +Whence the woods gathering watch new cliffs emerge +Higher than their highest of crowns that sea-winds fret, +Hold fast, for all that night or wind can say, +Some pale pure colour yet, +Too dim for green and luminous for grey. +Between the climbing inland cliffs above +And these beneath that breast and break the bay, +A barren peace too soft for hate or love +Broods on an hour too dim for night or day. + +O wind, O wingless wind that walk'st the sea, +Weak wind, wing-broken, wearier wind than we, +Who are yet not spirit-broken, maimed like thee, +Who wail not in our inward night as thou +In the outer darkness now, +What word has the old sea given thee for mine ear +From thy faint lips to hear? +For some word would she send me, knowing not how. + +Nay, what far other word +Than ever of her was spoken, or of me +Or all my winged white kinsfolk of the sea +Between fresh wave and wave was ever heard, +Cleaves the clear dark enwinding tree with tree +Too close for stars to separate and to see +Enmeshed in multitudinous unity? +What voice of what strong God hath stormed and stirred +The fortressed rock of silence, rent apart +Even to the core Night's all-maternal heart? +What voice of God grown heavenlier in a bird, +Made keener of edge to smite +Than lightning--yea, thou knowest, O mother Night, +Keen as that cry from thy strange children sent +Wherewith the Athenian judgment-shrine was rent, +For wrath that all their wrath was vainly spent, +Their wrath for wrong made right +By justice in her own divine despite +That bade pass forth unblamed +The sinless matricide and unashamed? +Yea, what new cry is this, what note more bright +Than their song's wing of words was dark of flight, +What word is this thou hast heard, +Thine and not thine or theirs, O Night, what word +More keen than lightning and more sweet than light? +As all men's hearts grew godlike in one bird +And all those hearts cried on thee, crying with might, +Hear us, O mother Night. + +Dumb is the mouth of darkness as of death: +Light, sound and life are one +In the eyes and lips of dawn that draw the sun +To hear what first child's word with glimmering breath +Their weak wan weanling child the twilight saith; +But night makes answer none. + +God, if thou be God,--bird, if bird thou be,-- +Do thou then answer me. +For but one word, what wind soever blow, +Is blown up usward ever from the sea. +In fruitless years of youth dead long ago +And deep beneath their own dead leaves and snow +Buried, I heard with bitter heart and sere +The same sea's word unchangeable, nor knew +But that mine own life-days were changeless too +And sharp and salt with unshed tear on tear +And cold and fierce and barren; and my soul, +Sickening, swam weakly with bated breath +In a deep sea like death, +And felt the wind buffet her face with brine +Hard, and harsh thought on thought in long bleak roll +Blown by keen gusts of memory sad as thine +Heap the weight up of pain, and break, and leave +Strength scarce enough to grieve +In the sick heavy spirit, unmanned with strife +Of waves that beat at the tired lips of life. + +Nay, sad may be man's memory, sad may be +The dream he weaves him as for shadow of thee, +But scarce one breathing-space, one heartbeat long, +Wilt thou take shadow of sadness on thy song. +Not thou, being more than man or man's desire, +Being bird and God in one, +With throat of gold and spirit of the sun; +The sun whom all our souls and songs call sire, +Whose godhead gave thee, chosen of all our quire, +Thee only of all that serve, of all that sing +Before our sire and king, +Borne up some space on time's world-wandering wing, +This gift, this doom, to bear till time's wing tire-- +Life everlasting of eternal fire. + +Thee only of all; yet can no memory say +How many a night and day +My heart has been as thy heart, and my life +As thy life is, a sleepless hidden thing, +Full of the thirst and hunger of winter and spring, +That seeks its food not in such love or strife +As fill men's hearts with passionate hours and rest. +From no loved lips and on no loving breast +Have I sought ever for such gifts as bring +Comfort, to stay the secret soul with sleep. +The joys, the loves, the labours, whence men reap +Rathe fruit of hopes and fears, +I have made not mine; the best of all my days +Have been as those fair fruitless summer strays, +Those water-waifs that but the sea-wind steers, +Flakes of glad foam or flowers on footless ways +That take the wind in season and the sun, +And when the wind wills is their season done. + +For all my days as all thy days from birth +My heart as thy heart was in me as thee, +Fire; and not all the fountains of the sea +Have waves enough to quench it, nor on earth +Is fuel enough to feed, +While day sows night and night sows day for seed. + +We were not marked for sorrow, thou nor I, +For joy nor sorrow, sister, were we made, +To take delight and grief to live and die, +Assuaged by pleasures or by pains affrayed +That melt men's hearts and alter; we retain +A memory mastering pleasure and all pain, +A spirit within the sense of ear and eye, +A soul behind the soul, that seeks and sings +And makes our life move only with its wings +And feed but from its lips, that in return +Feed of our hearts wherein the old fires that burn +Have strength not to consume +Nor glory enough to exalt us past our doom. + +_Ah, ah, the doom_ (thou knowest whence rang that wail) +_Of the shrill nightingale!_ +(From whose wild lips, thou knowest, that wail was thrown) +_For round about her have the great gods cast +A wing-borne body, and clothed her close and fast +With a sweet life that hath no part in moan. +But me, for me_ (how hadst thou heart to hear?) +_Remains a sundering with the two-edged spear._ + +_Ah, for her doom!_ so cried in presage then +The bodeful bondslave of the king of men, +And might not win her will. +Too close the entangling dragnet woven of crime, +The snare of ill new-born of elder ill, +The curse of new time for an elder time, +Had caught, and held her yet, +Enmeshed intolerably in the intolerant net, +Who thought with craft to mock the God most high, +And win by wiles his crown of prophecy +From the Sun's hand sublime, +As God were man, to spare or to forget. + +But thou,--the gods have given thee and forgiven thee +More than our master gave +That strange-eyed spirit-wounded strange-tongued slave +There questing houndlike where the roofs red-wet +Reeked as a wet red grave. +Life everlasting has their strange grace given thee, +Even hers whom thou wast wont to sing and serve +With eyes, but not with song, too swift to swerve; +Yet might not even thine eyes estranged estrange her, +Who seeing thee too, but inly, burn and bleed +Like that pale princess-priest of Priam's seed, +For stranger service gave thee guerdon stranger; +If this indeed be guerdon, this indeed +Her mercy, this thy meed-- +That thou, being more than all we born, being higher +Than all heads crowned of him that only gives +The light whereby man lives, +The bay that bids man moved of God's desire +Lay hand on lute or lyre, +Set lip to trumpet or deflowered green reed-- +If this were given thee for a grace indeed, +That thou, being first of all these, thou alone +Shouldst have the grace to die not, but to live +And lose nor change one pulse of song, one tone +Of all that were thy lady's and thine own, +Thy lady's whom thou criedst on to forgive, +Thou, priest and sacrifice on the altar-stone +Where none may worship not of all that live, +Love's priestess, errant on dark ways diverse; +If this were grace indeed for Love to give, +If this indeed were blessing and no curse. + +Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song, +Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love, +Name above all names that are lights above, +We have loved, praised, pitied, crowned and done thee wrong, +O thou past praise and pity; thou the sole +Utterly deathless, perfect only and whole +Immortal, body and soul. +For over all whom time hath overpast +The shadow of sleep inexorable is cast, +The implacable sweet shadow of perfect sleep +That gives not back what life gives death to keep; +Yea, all that lived and loved and sang and sinned +Are all borne down death's cold sweet soundless wind +That blows all night and knows not whom its breath, +Darkling, may touch to death: +But one that wind hath touched and changed not,--one +Whose body and soul are parcel of the sun; +One that earth's fire could burn not, nor the sea +Quench; nor might human doom take hold on thee; +All praise, all pity, all dreams have done thee wrong, +All love, with eyes love-blinded from above; +Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love, +Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song. + +Hast thou none other answer then for me +Than the air may have of thee, +Or the earth's warm woodlands girdling with green girth +Thy secret sleepless burning life on earth, +Or even the sea that once, being woman crowned +And girt with fire and glory of anguish round, +Thou wert so fain to seek to, fain to crave +If she would hear thee and save +And give thee comfort of thy great green grave? +Because I have known thee always who thou art, +Thou knowest, have known thee to thy heart's own heart, +Nor ever have given light ear to storied song +That did thy sweet name sweet unwitting wrong, +Nor ever have called thee nor would call for shame, +Thou knowest, but inly by thine only name, +Sappho--because I have known thee and loved, hast thou +None other answer now? +As brother and sister were we, child and bird, +Since thy first Lesbian word +Flamed on me, and I knew not whence I knew +This was the song that struck my whole soul through, +Pierced my keen spirit of sense with edge more keen, +Even when I knew not,--even ere sooth was seen,-- +When thou wast but the tawny sweet winged thing +Whose cry was but of spring. + +And yet even so thine ear should hear me--yea, +Hear me this nightfall by this northland bay, +Even for their sake whose loud good word I had, +Singing of thee in the all-beloved clime +Once, where the windy wine of spring makes mad +Our sisters of Majano, who kept time +Clear to my choral rhyme. +Yet was the song acclaimed of these aloud +Whose praise had made mute humbleness misproud, +The song with answering song applauded thus, +But of that Daulian dream of Itylus. +So but for love's love haply was it--nay, +How else?--that even their song took my song's part, +For love of love and sweetness of sweet heart, +Or god-given glorious madness of mid May +And heat of heart and hunger and thirst to sing, +Full of the new wine of the wind of spring. + +Or if this were not, and it be not sin +To hold myself in spirit of thy sweet kin, +In heart and spirit of song; +If this my great love do thy grace no wrong, +Thy grace that gave me grace to dwell therein; +If thy gods thus be my gods, and their will +Made my song part of thy song--even such part +As man's hath of God's heart-- +And my life like as thy life to fulfil; +What have our gods then given us? Ah, to thee, +Sister, much more, much happier than to me, +Much happier things they have given, and more of grace +Than falls to man's light race; +For lighter are we, all our love and pain +Lighter than thine, who knowest of time or place +Thus much, that place nor time +Can heal or hurt or lull or change again +The singing soul that makes his soul sublime +Who hears the far fall of its fire-fledged rhyme +Fill darkness as with bright and burning rain +Till all the live gloom inly glows, and light +Seems with the sound to cleave the core of night. + +The singing soul that moves thee, and that moved +When thou wast woman, and their songs divine +Who mixed for Grecian mouths heaven's lyric wine +Fell dumb, fell down reproved +Before one sovereign Lesbian song of thine. +That soul, though love and life had fain held fast, +Wind-winged with fiery music, rose and past +Through the indrawn hollow of earth and heaven and hell, +As through some strait sea-shell +The wide sea's immemorial song,--the sea +That sings and breathes in strange men's ears of thee +How in her barren bride-bed, void and vast, +Even thy soul sang itself to sleep at last. + +To sleep? Ah, then, what song is this, that here +Makes all the night one ear, +One ear fulfilled and mad with music, one +Heart kindling as the heart of heaven, to hear +A song more fiery than the awakening sun +Sings, when his song sets fire +To the air and clouds that build the dead night's pyre? +_O thou of divers-coloured mind, O thou +Deathless, God's daughter subtle-souled_--lo, now, +Now too the song above all songs, in flight +Higher than the day-star's height, +And sweet as sound the moving wings of night! +_Thou of the divers-coloured seat_--behold, +Her very song of old!-- +_O deathless, O God's daughter subtle-souled!_ +That same cry through this boskage overhead +Rings round reiterated, +Palpitates as the last palpitated, +The last that panted through her lips and died +Not down this grey north sea's half sapped cliff-side +That crumbles toward the coastline, year by year +More near the sands and near; +The last loud lyric fiery cry she cried, +Heard once on heights Leucadian,--heard not here. + +Not here; for this that fires our northland night, +This is the song that made +Love fearful, even the heart of love afraid, +With the great anguish of its great delight. +No swan-song, no far-fluttering half-drawn breath, +No word that love of love's sweet nature saith, +No dirge that lulls the narrowing lids of death, +No healing hymn of peace-prevented strife,-- +This is her song of life. + +_I loved thee_,--hark, one tenderer note than all-- +_Atthis, of old time, once_--one low long fall, +Sighing--one long low lovely loveless call, +Dying--one pause in song so flamelike fast-- +_Atthis, long since in old time overpast_-- +One soft first pause and last. +One,--then the old rage of rapture's fieriest rain +Storms all the music-maddened night again. + +_Child of God, close craftswoman, I beseech thee, +Bid not ache nor agony break nor master, +Lady, my spirit_-- +O thou her mistress, might her cry not reach thee? +Our Lady of all men's loves, could Love go past her, +Pass, and not hear it? + +She hears not as she heard not; hears not me, +O treble-natured mystery,--how should she +Hear, or give ear?--who heard and heard not thee; +Heard, and went past, and heard not; but all time +Hears all that all the ravin of his years +Hath cast not wholly out of all men's ears +And dulled to death with deep dense funeral chime +Of their reiterate rhyme. +And now of all songs uttering all her praise, +All hers who had thy praise and did thee wrong, +Abides one song yet of her lyric days, +Thine only, this thy song. + +O soul triune, woman and god and bird, +Man, man at least has heard. +All ages call thee conqueror, and thy cry +The mightiest as the least beneath the sky +Whose heart was ever set to song, or stirred +With wind of mounting music blown more high +Than wildest wing may fly, +Hath heard or hears,--even Æschylus as I. +But when thy name was woman, and thy word +Human,--then haply, surely then meseems +This thy bird's note was heard on earth of none, +Of none save only in dreams. +In all the world then surely was but one +Song; as in heaven at highest one sceptred sun +Regent, on earth here surely without fail +One only, one imperious nightingale. +Dumb was the field, the woodland mute, the lawn +Silent; the hill was tongueless as the vale +Even when the last fair waif of cloud that felt +Its heart beneath the colouring moonrays melt, +At high midnoon of midnight half withdrawn, +Bared all the sudden deep divine moondawn. +Then, unsaluted by her twin-born tune, +That latter timeless morning of the moon +Rose past its hour of moonrise; clouds gave way +To the old reconquering ray, +But no song answering made it more than day; +No cry of song by night +Shot fire into the cloud-constraining light. +One only, one Æolian island heard +Thrill, but through no bird's throat, +In one strange manlike maiden's godlike note, +The song of all these as a single bird. +Till the sea's portal was as funeral gate +For that sole singer in all time's ageless date +Singled and signed for so triumphal fate, +All nightingales but one in all the world +All her sweet life were silent; only then, +When her life's wing of womanhood was furled, +Their cry, this cry of thine was heard again, +As of me now, of any born of men. +Through sleepless clear spring nights filled full of thee, +Rekindled here, thy ruling song has thrilled +The deep dark air and subtle tender sea +And breathless hearts with one bright sound fulfilled. +Or at midnoon to me +Swimming, and birds about my happier head +Skimming, one smooth soft way by water and air, +To these my bright born brethren and to me +Hath not the clear wind borne or seemed to bear +A song wherein all earth and heaven and sea +Were molten in one music made of thee +To enforce us, O our sister of the shore, +Look once in heart back landward and adore? +For songless were we sea-mews, yet had we +More joy than all things joyful of thee--more, +Haply, than all things happiest; nay, save thee, +In thy strong rapture of imperious joy +Too high for heart of sea-borne bird or boy, +What living things were happiest if not we? +But knowing not love nor change nor wrath nor wrong, +No more we knew of song. + +Song, and the secrets of it, and their might, +What blessings curse it and what curses bless, +I know them since my spirit had first in sight, +Clear as thy song's words or the live sun's light, +The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness +That held the fire eternal; eye and ear +Were as a god's to see, a god's to hear, +Through all his hours of daily and nightly chime, +The sundering of the two-edged spear of time: +The spear that pierces even the sevenfold shields +Of mightiest Memory, mother of all songs made, +And wastes all songs as roseleaves kissed and frayed +As here the harvest of the foam-flowered fields; +But thine the spear may waste not that he wields +Since first the God whose soul is man's live breath, +The sun whose face hath our sun's face for shade, +Put all the light of life and love and death +Too strong for life, but not for love too strong, +Where pain makes peace with pleasure in thy song, +And in thine heart, where love and song make strife, +Fire everlasting of eternal life. + + + + +THE GARDEN OF CYMODOCE + + +Sea, and bright wind, and heaven of ardent air, +More dear than all things earth-born; O to me +Mother more dear than love's own longing, sea, +More than love's eyes are, fair, +Be with my spirit of song as wings to bear, +As fire to feel and breathe and brighten; be +A spirit of sense more deep of deity, +A light of love, if love may be, more strong +In me than very song. +For song I have loved with second love, but thee, +Thee first, thee, mother; ere my songs had breath, +That love of loves, whose bondage makes man free, +Was in me strong as death. +And seeing no slave may love thee, no, not one +That loves not freedom more, +And more for thy sake loves her, and for hers +Thee; or that hates not, on whate'er thy shore +Or what thy wave soever, all things done +Of man beneath the sun +In his despite and thine, to cross and curse +Your light and song that as with lamp and verse +Guide safe the strength of our sphered universe, +Thy breath it was, thou knowest, and none but thine, +That taught me love of one thing more divine. + + Ah, yet my youth was old [_Str._ 1. + Its first years dead and cold + As last year's autumn's gold, +And all my spirit of singing sick and sad and sere, + Or ever I might behold + The fairest of thy fold + Engirt, enringed, enrolled, +In all thy flower-sweet flock of islands dear and near. + + Yet in my heart I deemed [_Str._ 2. + The fairest things, meseemed, + Truth, dreaming, ever dreamed, +Had made mine eyes already like a god's to see: + Of all sea-things that were + Clothed on with water and air, + That none could live more fair +Than thy sweet love long since had shown for love to me. + + I knew not, mother of mine, [_Ant._ 1. + That one birth more divine + Than all births else of thine +That hang like flowers or jewels on thy deep soft breast + Was left for me to shine + Above thy girdling line + Of bright and breathing brine, +To take mine eyes with rapture and my sense with rest. + + That this was left for me, [_Ant._2. + Mother, to have of thee, + To touch, to taste, to see, +To feel as fire fulfilling all my blood and breath, + As wine of living fire + Keen as the heart's desire + That makes the heart its pyre +And on its burning visions burns itself to death. + +For here of all thy waters, here of all +Thy windy ways the wildest, and beset +As some beleaguered city's war-breached wall +With deaths enmeshed all round it in deep net, +Thick sown with rocks deadlier than steel, and fierce +With loud cross-countering currents, where the ship +Flags, flickering like a wind-bewildered leaf, +The densest weft of waves that prow may pierce +Coils round the sharpest warp of shoals that dip +Suddenly, scarce well under for one brief +Keen breathing-space between the streams adverse, +Scarce showing the fanged edge of one hungering lip +Or one tooth lipless of the ravening reef; +And midmost of the murderous water's web +All round it stretched and spun, +Laughs, reckless of rough tide and raging ebb, +The loveliest thing that shines against the sun. + +O flower of all wind-flowers and sea-flowers, [_Str._ 3. + Made lovelier by love of the sea +Than thy golden own field-flowers, or tree-flowers + Like foam of the sea-facing tree! +No foot but the seamew's there settles + On the spikes of thine anthers like horns, +With snow-coloured spray for thy petals, + Black rocks for thy thorns. + +Was it here, in the waste of his waters, [_Ant._ 3. + That the lordly north wind, when his love +On the fairest of many king's daughters + Bore down for a spoil from above, +Chose forth of all farthest far islands + As a haven to harbour her head, +Of all lowlands on earth and all highlands, + His bride-worthy bed? + +Or haply, my sea-flower, he found thee [_Str._ 4. + Made fast as with anchors to land, +And broke, that his waves might be round thee, + Thy fetters like rivets of sand? +And afar by the blast of him drifted + Thy blossom of beauty was borne, +As a lark by the heart in her lifted + To mix with the morn? + +By what rapture of rage, by what vision [_Ant._ 4. + Of a heavenlier heaven than above, +Was he moved to devise thy division + From the land as a rest for his love? +As a nest when his wings would remeasure + The ways where of old they would be, +As a bride-bed upbuilt for his pleasure + By sea-rock and sea? + +For in no deeps of midmost inland May +More flowerbright flowers the hawthorn, or more sweet +Swells the wild gold of the earth for wandering feet; +For on no northland way +Crowds the close whin-bloom closer, set like thee +With thorns about for fangs of sea-rock shown +Through blithe lips of the bitter brine to lee; +Nor blithelier landward comes the sea-wind blown, +Nor blithelier leaps the land-wind back to sea: +Nor louder springs the living song of birds +To shame our sweetest words. +And in the narrowest of thine hollowest hold +For joy thine aspens quiver as though for cold, +And many a self-lit flower-illumined tree +Outlaughs with snowbright or with rosebright glee +The laughter of the fields whose laugh is gold. +Yea, even from depth to height, +Even thine own beauty with its own delight +Fulfils thine heart in thee an hundredfold +Beyond the larger hearts of islands bright +With less intense contraction of desire +Self-satiate, centred in its own deep fire; +Of shores not self-enchanted and entranced +By heavenly severance from all shadow of mirth +Or mourning upon earth: +As thou, by no similitude enhanced, +By no fair foil made fairer, but alone +Fair as could be no beauty save thine own, +And wondrous as no world-beholden wonder: +Throned, with the world's most perilous sea for throne, +And praised from all its choral throats of thunder. + + Yet one praise hast thou, holier [_Str._ 5. + Than praise of theirs may be, + To exalt thee, wert thou lowlier + Than all that take the sea + With shores whence waves ebb slowlier + Than these fall off from thee; + +That One, whose name gives glory, [_Ant._ 5. + One man whose life makes light, +One crowned and throned in story + Above all empire's height, +Came, where thy straits run hoary, + To hold thee fast in sight; + +With hallowing eyes to hold thee, [_Str._ 6. + With rapturous heart to read, +To encompass and enfold thee + With love whence all men feed, +To brighten and behold thee, + Who is mightiest of man's seed: + +More strong than strong disaster, [_Ant._ 6. + For fate and fear too strong; +Earth's friend, whose eyes look past her, + Whose hands would purge of wrong; +Our lord, our light, our master, + Whose word sums up all song. + +Be it April or September [_Str._ 7. + That plays his perfect part, +Burn June or blow December, + Thou canst not in thine heart +But rapturously remember, + All heavenlike as thou art, + +Whose footfall made thee fairer, [_Ant._ 7. + Whose passage more divine, +Whose hand, our thunder-bearer, + Held fire that bade thee shine +With subtler glory and rarer + Than thrills the sun's own shrine. + +Who knows how then his godlike banished gaze +Turned haply from its goal of natural days +And homeward hunger for the clear French clime, +Toward English earth, whereunder now the Accursed +Rots, in the hate of all men's hearts inhearsed, +A carrion ranker to the sense of time +For that sepulchral gift of stone and lime +By royal grace laid on it, less of weight +Than the load laid by fate, +Fate, misbegotten child of his own crime, +Son of as foul a bastard-bearing birth +As even his own on earth; +Less heavy than the load of cursing piled +By loyal grace of all souls undefiled +On one man's head, whose reeking soul made rotten +The loathed live corpse on earth once misbegotten? +But when our Master's homeless feet were here +France yet was foul with joy more foul than fear, +And slavery chosen, more vile by choice of chance +Than dull damnation of inheritance +From Russian year to year +Alas fair mother of men, alas my France, +What ailed thee so to fall, that wert so dear +For all men's sake to all men, in such trance, +Plague-stricken? Had the very Gods, that saw +Thy glory lighten on us for a law, +Thy gospel go before us for a guide, +Had these waxed envious of our love and awe, +Or was it less their envy than thy pride +That bared thy breast for the obscene vulture-claw, +High priestess, by whose mouth Love prophesied +That fate should yet mean freedom? Howsoever, +That hour, the helper of men's hearts, we praise, +Which blots out of man's book of after days +The name above all names abhorred for ever. +And His name shall we praise not, whom these flowers, +These rocks and ravening waters bound for girth +Round this wild starry spanlong plot of earth, +Beheld, the mightier for those heavier hours +That bowed his heart not down +Nor marred one crowning blossom of his crown? +For surely, might we say, +Even from the dark deep sea-gate that makes way +Through channelled darkness for the darkling day +Hardly to let men's faltering footfall win +The sunless passage in, +Where breaks a world aflower against the sun, +A small sweet world of wave-encompassed wonder +Kept from the wearier landward world asunder +With violence of wild waters, and with thunder +Of many winds as one, +To where the keen sea-current grinds and frets +The black bright sheer twin flameless Altarlets +That lack no live blood-sacrifice they crave +Of shipwreck and the shrine-subservient wave, +Having for priest the storm-wind, and for choir +Lightnings and clouds whose prayer and praise are fire, +All the isle acclaimed him coming; she, the least +Of all things loveliest that the sea's love hides +From strange men's insult, walled about with tides +That bid strange guests back from her flower-strewn feast, +Set all her fields aflower, her flowers aflame, +To applaud him that he came. +Nor surely flashed not something of delight +Through that steep strait of rock whose twin-cliffed height +Links crag with crag reiterate, land with land, +By one sheer thread of narrowing precipice +Bifront, that binds and sunders +Abyss from hollower imminent abyss +And wilder isle with island, blind for bliss +Of sea that lightens and of wind that thunders; +Nor pealed not surely back from deep to steep +Reverberate acclamation, steep to deep +Inveterately reclaiming and replying +Praise, and response applausive; nor the sea, +For all the sea-wind's crying, +Knew not the song her sister, even as she +Thundering, or like her confluent spring-tides brightening, +And like her darkness lightening; +The song that moved about him silent, now +Both soundless wings refolded and refurled +On that Promethean brow, +Then quivering as for flight that wakes the world. + +From the roots of the rocks underlying the gulfs that engird it around + [_Str._ 8. +Was the isle not enkindled with light of him landing, or thrilled not + with sound? +Yea, surely the sea like a harper laid hand on the shore as a lyre, +As the lyre in his own for a birthright of old that was given of his sire, +And the hand of the child was put forth on the chords yet alive and aflame +From the hand of the God that had wrought it in heaven; and the hand was + the same. +And the tongue of the child spake, singing; and never a note that he sang, +But the strings made answer unstricken, as though for the God they rang. +And the eyes of the child shone, lightening; and touched as by life at his + nod, +They shuddered with music, and quickened as though from the glance of the + God. +So trembled the heart of the hills and the rocks to receive him, and + yearned +With desirous delight of his presence and love that beholding him burned. +Yea, down through the mighty twin hollows where never the sunlight shall + be, +Deep sunk under imminent earth, and subdued to the stress of the sea, +That feel when the dim week changes by change of their tides in the dark, +As the wave sinks under within them, reluctant, removed from its mark, +Even there in the terror of twilight in bloom with its blossoms ablush, +Did a sense of him touch not the gleam of their flowers with a fierier + flush? +Though the sun they behold not for ever, yet knew they not over them One +Whose soul was the soul of the morning, whose song was the song of the sun? +But the secrets inviolate of sunlight in hollows untrodden of day, +Shall he dream what are these who beholds not? or he that hath seen, + shall he say? +For the path is for passage of sea-mews; and he that hath glided and leapt +Over sea-grass and sea-rock, alighting as one from a citadel crept +That his foemen beleaguer, descending by darkness and stealth, at the last +Peers under, and all is as hollow to hellward, agape and aghast. +But afloat and afar in the darkness a tremulous colour subsides [_Ant._ 8. +From the crimson high crest of the purple-peaked roof to the soft-coloured + sides +That brighten as ever they widen till downward the level is won +Of the soundless and colourless water that knows not the sense of the sun: +From the crown of the culminant arch to the floor of the lakelet abloom, +One infinite blossom of blossoms innumerable aflush through the gloom. +All under the deeps of the darkness are glimmering; all over impends +An immeasurable infinite flower of the dark that dilates and descends, +That exults and expands in its breathless and blind efflorescence of heart +As it broadens and bows to the wave-ward, and breathes not, and hearkens + apart. +As a beaker inverse at a feast on Olympus, exhausted of wine, +But inlaid as with rose from the lips of Dione that left it divine: +From the lips everliving of laughter and love everlasting, that leave +In the cleft of his heart who shall kiss them a snake to corrode it and + cleave. +So glimmers the gloom into glory, the glory recoils into gloom, +That the eye of the sun could not kindle, the lip not of Love could relume. +So darkens reverted the cup that the kiss of her mouth set on fire: +So blackens a brand in his eyeshot asmoulder awhile from the pyre. +For the beam from beneath and without it refrangent again from the wave +Strikes up through the portal a ghostly reverse on the dome of the cave, +On the depth of the dome ever darkling and dim to the crown of its arc: +That the sun-coloured tapestry, sunless for ever, may soften the dark. +But within through the side-seen archway a glimmer again from the right +Is the seal of the sea's tide set on the mouth of the mystery of night. +And the seal on the seventh day breaks but a little, that man by its mean +May behold what the sun hath not looked on, the stars of the night have + not seen. + +Even like that hollow-bosomed rose, inverse +And infinite, the heaven of thy vast verse, +Our Master, over all our souls impends, +Imminent; we, with heart-enkindled eyes +Upwondering, search the music-moulded skies +Sphere by sweet sphere, concordant as it blends +Light of bright sound, sound of clear light, in one, +As all the stars found utterance through the sun. +And all that heaven is like a rose in bloom, +Flower-coloured, where its own sun's fires illume +As from one central and imperious heart +The whole sky's every part: +But lightening still and darkling downward, lo +The light and darkness of it, +The leaping of the lamping levin afar +Between the full moon and the sunset star, +The war-song of the sounding skies aglow, +That have the herald thunder for their prophet: +From north to south the lyric lights that leap, +The tragic sundawns reddening east and west +As with bright blood from one Promethean breast, +The peace of noon that strikes the sea to sleep, +The wail over the world of all that weep, +The peace of night when death brings life on rest. + +Goddess who gatherest all the herded waves +Into thy great sweet pastureless green fold, +Even for our love of old, +I pray thee by thy power that slays and saves, +Take thou my song of this thy flower to keep +Who hast my heart in hold; +And from thine high place of thy garden-steep, +Where one sheer terrace oversees thy deep +From the utmost rock-reared height +Down even to thy dear depths of night and light, +Take my song's salutation; and on me +Breathe back the benediction of thy sea. + + + +_Between two seas the sea-bird's wing makes halt, + Wind-weary; while with lifting head he waits + For breath to reinspire him from the gates +That open still toward sunrise on the vault +High-domed of morning, and in flight's default + With spreading sense of spirit anticipates + What new sea now may lure beyond the straits +His wings exulting that her winds exalt +And fill them full as sails to seaward spread, + Fulfilled with fair speed's promise. Pass, my song, +Forth to the haven of thy desire and dread, + The presence of our lord, long loved and long +Far off above beholden, who to thee +Was as light kindling all a windy sea._ + + + + +BIRTHDAY ODE + +FOR THE ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL OF VICTOR HUGO, +FEBRUARY 26, 1880 + + + Spring, born in heaven ere many a springtime flown, [_Strophe_ 1. + Dead spring that sawest on earth + A babe of deathless birth, + A flower of rosier flowerage than thine own, + A glory of goodlier godhead; even this day, + That floods the mist of February with May, + And strikes death dead with sunlight, and the breath + Whereby the deadly doers are done to death, + They that in day's despite + Would crown the imperial night, 10 + And in deep hate of insubmissive spring + Rethrone the royal winter for a king, + This day that casts the days of darkness down + Low as a broken crown, + We call thee from the gulf of deeds and days, + Deathless and dead, to hear us whom we praise. + + A light of many lights about thine head, [_Antistrophe_ 1. + Lights manifold and one, + Stars molten in a sun, + A sun of divers beams incorporated, 20 + Compact of confluent aureoles, each more fair + Than man, save only at highest of man, may wear, + So didst thou rise, when this our grey-grown age + Had trod two paces of his pilgrimage, + Two paces through the gloom + From his fierce father's tomb, + Led by cross lights of lightnings, and the flame + That burned in darkness round one darkling name; + So didst thou rise, nor knewest thy glory, O thou + Re-risen upon us now, 30 + The glory given thee for a grace to give, + And take the praise of all men's hearts that live. + + First in the dewy ray [_Epode_ 1. + Ere dawn be slain of day + The fresh crowned lilies of discrowned kings' prime + Sprang splendid as of old + With moonlight-coloured gold + And rays refract from the oldworld heaven of time; + Pale with proud light of stars decreased 39 +In westward wane reluctant from the conquering east. + + But even between their golden olden bloom [_Str._ 2. + Strange flowers of wildwood glory, + With frost and moonshine hoary, + Thrust up the new growths of their green-leaved gloom, + Red buds of ballad blossom, where the dew + Blushed as with bloodlike passion, and its hue + Was as the life and love of hearts on flame, + And fire from forth of each live chalice came: + Young sprays of elder song, + Stem straight and petal strong, 50 + Bright foliage with dark frondage overlaid, + And light the lovelier for its lordlier shade; + And morn and even made loud in woodland lone + With cheer of clarions blown, + And through the tournay's clash and clarion's cheer + Laugh to laugh echoing, tear washed off by tear. + + Then eastward far past northland lea and lawn + Beneath a heavier light [_Ant._ 2. + Of stormier day and night + Began the music of the heaven of dawn; 60 + Bright sound of battle along the Grecian waves, + Loud light of thunder above the Median graves, + New strife, new song on Æschylean seas, + Canaris risen above Themistocles; + Old glory of warrior ghosts + Shed fresh on filial hosts, + With dewfall redder than the dews of day, + And earth-born lightnings out of bloodbright spray; + Then through the flushed grey gloom on shadowy sheaves + Low flights of falling leaves; 70 + And choirs of birds transfiguring as they throng + All the world's twilight and the soul's to song. + + Voices more dimly deep [_Ep._ 2. + Than the inmost heart of sleep, + And tenderer than the rose-mouthed morning's lips; + And midmost of them heard + The viewless water's word, + The sea's breath in the wind's wing and the ship's, + That bids one swell and sound and smite 79 +And rend that other in sunder as with fangs by night. + + But ah! the glory of shadow and mingling ray, [_Str._ 3. + The story of morn and even + Whose tale was writ in heaven + And had for scroll the night, for scribe the day! + For scribe the prophet of the morning, far + Exalted over twilight and her star; + For scroll beneath his Apollonian hand + The dim twin wastes of sea and glimmering land. + Hark, on the hill-wind, clear + For all men's hearts to hear 90 + Sound like a stream at nightfall from the steep + That all time's depths might answer, deep to deep, + With trumpet-measures of triumphal wail + From windy vale to vale, + The crying of one for love that strayed and sinned + Whose brain took madness of the mountain wind. + + Between the birds of brighter and duskier wing, [_Ant._ 3. + What mightier-moulded forms + Girt with red clouds and storms + Mix their strong hearts with theirs that soar and sing? 100 + Before the storm-blast blown of death's dark horn + The marriage moonlight withers, that the morn + For two made one may find three made by death + One ruin at the blasting of its breath: + Clothed with heart's flame renewed + And strange new maidenhood, + Faith lightens on the lips that bloomed for hire + Pure as the lightning of love's first-born fire: + Wide-eyed and patient ever, till the curse + Find where to fall and pierce, 110 + Keen expiation whets with edge more dread + A father's wrong to smite a father's head. + + Borgia, supreme from birth [_Ep._ 3. + As loveliest born on earth + Since earth bore ever women that were fair; + Scarce known of her own house + If daughter or sister or spouse; + Who holds men's hearts yet helpless with her hair; + The direst of divine things made, +Bows down her amorous aureole half suffused with shade. 120 + + As red the fire-scathed royal northland bloom, [_Str._ 4. + That left our story a name + Dyed through with blood and flame + Ere her life shrivelled from a fierier doom + Than theirs her priests bade pass from earth in fire + To slake the thirst of God their Lord's desire: + As keen the blast of love-enkindled fate + That burst the Paduan tyrant's guarded gate: + As sad the softer moan + Made one with music's own 130 + For one whose feet made music as they fell + On ways by loveless love made hot from hell: + But higher than these and all the song thereof + The perfect heart of love, + The heart by fraud and hate once crucified, + That, dying, gave thanks, and in thanksgiving died. + + Above the windy walls that rule the Rhine [_Ant._ 4. + A noise of eagles' wings + And wintry war-time rings, + With roar of ravage trampling corn and vine 140 + And storm of wrathful wassail dashed with song, + And under these the watch of wreakless wrong, + With fire of eyes anhungered; and above + These, the light of the stricken eyes of love, + The faint sweet eyes that follow + The wind-outwinging swallow, + And face athirst with young wan yearning mouth + Turned after toward the unseen all-golden south, + Hopeless to see the birds back ere life wane, + Or the leaves born again; 150 + And still the might and music mastering fate + Of life more strong than death and love than hate. + + In spectral strength biform [_Ep._ 4. + Stand the twin sons of storm + Transfigured by transmission of one hand + That gives the new-born time + Their semblance more sublime + Than once it lightened over each man's land; + There Freedom's winged and wide-mouthed hound, 159 +And here our high Dictator, in his son discrowned. + + What strong-limbed shapes of kindred throng round these [_Str._ 5. + Before, between, behind, + Sons born of one man's mind, + Fed at his hands and fostered round his knees? + Fear takes the spirit in thraldom at his nod, + And pity makes it as the spirit of God, + As his own soul that from her throne above + Sheds on all souls of men her showers of love, + On all earth's evil and pain + Pours mercy forth as rain 170 + And comfort as the dewfall on dry land; + And feeds with pity from a faultless hand + All by their own fault stricken, all cast out + By all men's scorn or doubt, + Or with their own hands wounded, or by fate + Brought into bondage of men's fear or hate. + + In violence of strange visions north and south + Confronted, east and west, [_Ant._ 5. + With frozen or fiery breast, + Eyes fixed or fevered, pale or bloodred mouth, 180 + Kept watch about his dawn-enkindled dreams; + But ere high noon a light of nearer beams + Made his young heaven of manhood more benign, + And love made soft his lips with spiritual wine, + And left them fired, and fed + With sacramental bread, + And sweet with honey of tenderer words than tears + To feed men's hopes and fortify men's fears, + And strong to silence with benignant breath + The lips that doom to death, 190 + And swift with speech like fire in fiery lands + To melt the steel's edge in the headsman's hands. + + Higher than they rose of old, [_Ep._ 5. + New builded now, behold, + The live great likeness of Our Lady's towers; + And round them like a dove + Wounded, and sick with love, + One fair ghost moving, crowned with fateful flowers, + Watched yet with eyes of bloodred lust 199 +And eyes of love's heart broken and unbroken trust. + + But sadder always under shadowier skies, [_Str._ 6. + More pale and sad and clear + Waxed always, drawn more near, + The face of Duty lit with Love's own eyes; + Till the awful hands that culled in rosier hours + From fairy-footed fields of wild old flowers + And sorcerous woods of Rhineland, green and hoary, + Young children's chaplets of enchanted story, + The great kind hands that showed + Exile its homeward road, 210 + And, as man's helper made his foeman God, + Of pity and mercy wrought themselves a rod, + And opened for Napoleon's wandering kin + France, and bade enter in, + And threw for all the doors of refuge wide, + Took to them lightning in the thunder-tide. + + For storm on earth above had risen from under, + Out of the hollow of hell, [_Ant._ 6. + Such storm as never fell + From darkest deeps of heaven distract with thunder; + A cloud of cursing, past all shape of thought, 221 + More foul than foulest dreams, and overfraught + With all obscene things and obscure of birth + That ever made infection of man's earth; + Having all hell for cloak + Wrapped round it as a smoke + And in its womb such offspring so defiled + As earth bare never for her loathliest child, + Rose, brooded, reddened, broke, and with its breath + Put France to poisonous death; 230 + Yea, far as heaven's red labouring eye could glance, + France was not, save in men cast forth of France. + + Then,--while the plague-sore grew [_Ep._ 6. + Two darkling decades through, + And rankled in the festering flesh of time,-- + Where darkness binds and frees + The wildest of wild seas + In fierce mutations of the unslumbering clime, + There, sleepless too, o'er shuddering wrong +One hand appointed shook the reddening scourge of song. 240 + + And through the lightnings of the apparent word + Dividing shame's dense night [_Str._ 7. + Sounds lovelier than the light + And light more sweet than song from night's own bird + Mixed each their hearts with other, till the gloom + Was glorious as with all the stars in bloom, + Sonorous as with all the spheres in chime + Heard far through flowering heaven: the sea, sublime + Once only with its own + Old winds' and waters' tone, 250 + Sad only or glad with its own glory, and crowned + With its own light, and thrilled with its own sound, + Learnt now their song, more sweet than heaven's may be, + Who pass away by sea; + The song that takes of old love's land farewell, + With pulse of plangent water like a knell. + + And louder ever and louder and yet more loud + Till night be shamed of morn [_Ant._ 7. + Rings the Black Huntsman's horn + Through darkening deeps beneath the covering cloud, 260 + Till all the wild beasts of the darkness hear; + Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear, + Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale, + Till spies and slayers on seats of judgment quail, + Till mitre and cowl bow down + And crumble as a crown, + Till Cæsar driven to lair and hounded Pope + Reel breathless and drop heartless out of hope, + And one the uncleanest kinless beast of all + Lower than his fortune fall; 270 + The wolfish waif of casual empire, born + To turn all hate and horror cold with scorn. + + Yea, even at night's full noon [_Ep._ 7. + Light's birth-song brake in tune, + Spake, witnessing that with us one must be, + God; naming so by name + That priests have brought to shame + The strength whose scourge sounds on the smitten sea; + The mystery manifold of might +Which bids the wind give back to night the things of night. 280 + + Even God, the unknown of all time; force or thought, [_Str._ 8. + Nature or fate or will, + Clothed round with good and ill, + Veiled and revealed of all things and of nought, + Hooded and helmed with mystery, girt and shod + With light and darkness, unapparent God. + Him the high prophet o'er his wild work bent + Found indivisible ever and immanent + At hidden heart of truth, + In forms of age and youth 290 + Transformed and transient ever; masked and crowned, + From all bonds loosened and with all bonds bound, + Diverse and one with all things; love and hate, + Earth, and the starry state + Of heaven immeasurable, and years that flee + As clouds and winds and rays across the sea. + + But higher than stars and deeper than the waves + Of day and night and morrow [_Ant._ 8. + That roll for all time, sorrow + Keeps ageless watch over perpetual graves. 300 + From dawn to morning of the soul in flower, + Through toils and dreams and visions, to that hour + When all the deeps were opened, and one doom + Took two sweet lives to embrace them and entomb, + The strong song plies its wing + That makes the darkness ring + And the deep light reverberate sound as deep; + Song soft as flowers or grass more soft than sleep, + Song bright as heaven above the mounting bird, + Song like a God's tears heard 310 + Falling, fulfilled of life and death and light, + And all the stars and all the shadow of night. + + Till, when its flight hath past [_Ep._ 8. + Time's loftiest mark and last, + The goal where good kills evil with a kiss, + And Darkness in God's sight + Grows as his brother Light, + And heaven and hell one heart whence all the abyss + Throbs with love's music; from his trance +Love waking leads it home to her who stayed in France. 320 + + But now from all the world-old winds of the air [_Str._ 9. + One blast of record rings + As from time's hidden springs + With roar of rushing wings and fires that bear + Toward north and south sonorous, east and west, + Forth of the dark wherein its records rest, + The story told of the ages, writ nor sung + By man's hand ever nor by mortal tongue + Till, godlike with desire, + One tongue of man took fire, 330 + One hand laid hold upon the lightning, one + Rose up to bear time witness what the sun + Had seen, and what the moon and stars of night + Beholding lost not light: + From dawn to dusk what ways man wandering trod + Even through the twilight of the gods to God. + + From dawn of man and woman twain and one [_Ant._ 9. + When the earliest dews impearled + The front of all the world + Ringed with aurorean aureole of the sun, 340 + To days that saw Christ's tears and hallowing breath + Put life for love's sake in the lips of death, + And years as waves whose brine was fire, whose foam + Blood, and the ravage of Neronian Rome; + And the eastern crescent's horn + Mightier awhile than morn; + And knights whose lives were flights of eagles' wings, + And lives like snakes' lives of engendering kings; + And all the ravin of all the swords that reap + Lives cast as sheaves on heap 350 + From all the billowing harvest-fields of fight; + And sounds of love-songs lovelier than the light. + + The grim dim thrones of the east [_Ep._ 9. + Set for death's riotous feast + Round the bright board where darkling centuries wait, + And servile slaughter, mute, + Feeds power with fresh red fruit, + Glitter and groan with mortal food of fate; + And throne and cup and lamp's bright breath +Bear witness to their lord of only night and death. 360 + + Dead freedom by live empire lies defiled, [_Str._ 10. + And murder at his feet + Plies lust with wine and meat, + With offering of an old man and a child, + With holy body and blood, inexpiable + Communion in the sacrament of hell, + Till, reeking from their monstrous eucharist, + The lips wax cold that murdered where they kissed, + And empire in mid feast + Fall as a slaughtered beast 370 + Headless, and ease men's hungering hearts of fear + Lest God were none in heaven, to see nor hear, + And purge his own pollution with the flood + Poured of his black base blood + So first found healing, poisonous as it poured; + And on the clouds the archangel cleanse his sword. + + As at the word unutterable that made [_Ant._ 10. + Of day and night division, + From vision on to vision, 379 + From dream to dream, from darkness into shade, + From sunshine into sunlight, moves and lives + The steersman's eye, the helming hand that gives + Life to the wheels and wings that whirl along + The immeasurable impulse of the sphere of song + Through all the eternal years, + Beyond all stars and spheres, + Beyond the washing of the waves of time, + Beyond all heights where no thought else may climb, + Beyond the darkling dust of suns that were, + Past height and depth of air; 390 + And in the abyss whence all things move that are + Finds only living Love, the sovereign star. + + Nor less the weight and worth [_Ep._ 10. + Found even of love on earth + To wash all stain of tears and sins away, + On dying lips alit + That living knew not it, + In the winged shape of song with death to play: + To warm young children with its wings, +And try with fire the heart elect for godlike things. 400 + + For all worst wants of all most miserable [_Str._ 11. + With divine hands to deal + All balms and herbs that heal, + Among all woes whereunder poor men dwell + Our Master sent his servant Love, to be + On earth his witness; but the strange deep sea, + Mother of life and death inextricate, + What work should Love do there, to war with fate? + Yet there must Love too keep + At heart of the eyeless deep 410 + Watch, and wage war wide-eyed with all its wonders, + Lower than the lightnings of its waves, and thunders + Of seas less monstrous than the births they bred; + Keep high there heart and head, + And conquer: then for prize of all toils past + Feel the sea close them in again at last. + + A day of direr doom arisen thereafter [_Ant._ 11. + With cloud and fire in strife + Lightens and darkens life + Round one by man's hand masked with living laughter, 420 + A man by men bemonstered, but by love, + Watched with blind eyes as of a wakeful dove, + And wooed by lust, that in her rosy den + As fire on flesh feeds on the souls of men, + To take the intense impure + Burnt-offering of her lure, + Divine and dark and bright and naked, strange + With ravenous thirst of life reversed and change, + As though the very heaven should shrivel and swell + With hunger after hell, 430 + Run mad for dear damnation, and desire + To feel its light thrilled through with stings of fire. + + Above a windier sea, [_Ep._ 11. + The glory of Ninety-three + Fills heaven with blood-red and with rose-red beams + That earth beholding grows + Herself one burning rose + Flagrant and fragrant with strange deeds and dreams, + Dreams dyed as love's own flower, and deeds +Stained as with love's own life-blood, that for love's sake bleeds. 440 + + And deeper than all deeps of seas and skies [_Str._ 12. + Wherein the shadows are + Called sun and moon and star + That rapt conjecture metes with mounting eyes, + Loud with strange waves and lustrous with new spheres, + Shines, masked at once and manifest of years, + Shakespeare, a heaven of heavenly eyes beholden; + And forward years as backward years grow golden + With light of deeds and words + And flight of God's fleet birds, 450 + Angels of wrath and love and truth and pity; + And higher on exiled eyes their natural city + Dawns down the depths of vision, more sublime + Than all truths born of time; + And eyes that wept above two dear sons dead + Grow saving stars to guard one hopeless head. + + Bright round the brows of banished age had shone [_Ant._ 12. + In vision flushed with truth + The rosy glory of youth 459 + On streets and woodlands where in days long gone + Sweet love sang light and loud and deep and dear: + And far the trumpets of the dreadful year + Had pealed and wailed in darkness: last arose + The song of children, kindling as a rose + At breath of sunrise, born + Of the red flower of morn + Whose face perfumes deep heaven with odorous light + And thrills all through the wings of souls in flight + Close as the press of children at His knee + Whom if the high priest see, 470 + Dreaming, as homeless on dark earth he trod, + The lips that praise him shall not know for God. + + O sovereign spirit, above [_Ep._ 12. + All offering but man's love, + All praise and prayer and incense undefiled! + The one thing stronger found + Than towers with iron bound; + The one thing lovelier than a little child, + And deeper than the seas are deep, 479 +And tenderer than such tears of love as angels weep. + + Dante, the seer of all things evil and good, [_Str._ 13. + Beheld two ladies, Beauty + And high life-hallowing Duty, + That strove for sway upon his mind and mood + And held him in alternating accord + Fast bound at feet of either: but our lord, + The seer and singer of righteousness and wrong + Who stands now master of all the keys of song, + Sees both as dewdrops run + Together in the sun, 490 + For him not twain but one thing twice divine; + Even as his speech and song are bread and wine + For all souls hungering and all hearts athirst + At best of days and worst, + And both one sacrament of Love's great giving + To feed the spirit and sense of all souls living. + + The seventh day in the wind's month, ten years gone [_Ant._ 13. + Since heaven-espousing earth + Gave the Republic birth, + The mightiest soul put mortal raiment on 500 + That came forth singing ever in man's ears + Of all souls with us, and through all these years + Rings yet the lordliest, waxen yet more strong, + That on our souls hath shed itself in song, + Poured forth itself like rain + On souls like springing grain + That with its procreant beams and showers were fed + For living wine and sacramental bread; + Given all itself as air gives life and light, + Utterly, as of right; 510 + The goodliest gift our age hath given, to be + Ours, while the sun gives glory to the sea. + + Our Father and Master and Lord, [_Ep._ 13. + Who hast thy song for sword, + For staff thy spirit, and our hearts for throne: + As in past years of wrong, + Take now my subject song, + To no crowned head made humble but thine own; + That on thy day of worldly birth +Gives thanks for all thou hast given past thanks of all on earth. 520 + + * * * * * + + + + +NOTES + + +_v._ 33. _Odes et Ballades_, 1822-1824. + + 57. _Les Orientales_, 1829. + + 69. _Les Feuilles d'Automne_, 1831. + + 71. _Les Chants du Crépuscule_, 1835. + + 73. _Les Voix Intérieures_, 1837. + + 81. _Les Rayons et les Ombres_, 1840. + + 101. _Hernani_, 1830. + + 105. _Marion de Lorme_, 1831. + + 109. _Le Roi s'amuse_, 1832. + + 113. _Lucrèce Borgia_, 1833. + + 121. _Marie Tudor_, 1835. + + 127. _Angelo, Tyran de Padoue_, 1835. + + 129. _La Esmeralda_, 1836. + + 133. _Ruy Blas_, 1838. + + 137. _Les Burgraves_, 1842. + + 153. _Cromwell_, 1827: _Étude sur Mirabeau_, 1834 (_Littérature + et Philosophie mêlées_, 1819-1834). + + 177. _Han d'Islande_, 1823. _Bug-Jargal_, 1826. + + 182. _Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné_, 1829: _Claude Gueux_, 1834. + + 193. _Notre-Dame de Paris_, 1831. + + 205. _Le Rhin_, 1845. + + 216. _Napoléon le Petit_, 1852. _Châtiments_, 1853. _Histoire + d'un Crime_, 1877. In this place I must take occasion to + relieve my conscience from a sense of duty unfulfilled so + long as I for one have not uttered my own poor private + protest--worthless and weightless though it may seem, if + cast as a grain into the scale of public opinion--against + a projected insult at once to contemporary France and to + the present only less than to past generations of + Englishmen. + + _On the proposed desecration of Westminster Abbey + by the erection of a monument to + the son of Napoleon III_ + + "Let us go hence." From the inmost shrine of grace + Where England holds the elect of all her dead + There comes a word like one of old time said + By gods of old cast out. Here is no place + At once for these and one of poisonous race. + Let each rise up from his dishallowed bed + And pass forth silent. Each divine veiled head + Shall speak in silence with averted face. + "Scorn everlasting and eternal shame + Eat out the rotting record of his name + Who had the glory of all these graves in trust + And turned it to a hissing. His offence + Makes havoc of their desecrated dust + Whose place is here no more. Let us go hence." + + Feb. 25, 1880. + + 297. _Les Contemplations_, 1856. + + 321. _La Légende des Siècles_. _Première série_, 1859; _nouvelle + série_, 1877. + + 392. _Les Misérables_, 1862. + + 409. _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_, 1866. + + 417. _L'Homme qui Rit_, 1869. + + 433. _Quatre-vingt-treize_, 1874. + + 441. _William Shakespeare_, 1864. + + 448. _Actes et Paroles_; _Avant l'Exil_, 1841-1851; _Pendant + l'Exil_, 1852-1870; _Depuis l'Exil_, 1870-1876. + + 452. _Paris_, 1867. + + 455. _Mes Fils_, 1875. + + 456. _Pour un Soldat_, 1875. + + 457. _Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois_, 1865. + + 462. _L'Année Terrible_, 1872. + + 464. _L'Art d'être Grandpère_, 1877. + + 470. _Le Pape_, 1878. + + 497. "Septidi ventôse an X de la République (26 février 1802)." + _Victor Hugo raconté par un témoin de sa vie_, 1863, + _tome_ 1, p. 28. + + At the end of such a list, so incomparable as to seem + incredible, of one great man's good works, we may be + forgiven the alteration of a word even in a verse from + Æschylus which we cannot choose but apply once more to + this leader in the advance of men made perfect through + doom of trial and long wayfaring, whose progress he + furthers by example and stimulates by song:-- + + [Greek: kurios esti throein hodion kratos aision andrôn + ekteleôn; eti gar theothen katapneiei + peithô molpan + alkai sumphutos aiôn.] + + Æsch. _Agam._ 104-8. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Springtides and Birthday +Ode, by Algernon Charles Swinburne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES *** + +***** This file should be named 18287-8.txt or 18287-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/8/18287/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Diane Monico, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode + Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles + Swinburne--Vol. III + +Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne + +Release Date: April 30, 2006 [EBook #18287] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Diane Monico, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h1>SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES</h1> + +<h1>BIRTHDAY ODE<br /><br /></h1> + +<p class="center">Taken from<br /></p> +<h4>THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS<br /> +OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE,<br /> +VOL. III<br /><br /><br /></h4> + +<h3>By</h3> + +<h2>Algernon Charles Swinburne</h2> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + +<h3>SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS</h3> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="8" summary="works"> +<tr><td align='right'>I.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Poems and Ballads</span> (First Series).<br /></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>II.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Songs before Sunrise</span>, and <span class="smcap">Songs of Two Nations</span>.<br /></td></tr> + +<tr><td align='right'>III.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Poems and Ballads</span> (Second and Third Series), and <span class="smcap">Songs of The Springtides</span>.<br /></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>IV.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Tristram of Lyonesse, The Tale of Balen, Atalanta in Calydon, Erechtheus.</span><br /></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>V.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc.</span><br /></td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>VI.</td><td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Midsummer Holiday, Astrophel, A Channel Passage and Other Poems.</span><br /></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<p class="center"><small>LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN</small></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + +<h1> +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES</h1> + +<h1>BIRTHDAY ODE<br /> +<br /></h1> +<h3>By<br /> +<br /></h3> +<h2>Algernon Charles Swinburne<br /> +<br /></h2> +<h4>1917<br /> +<br /></h4> +<h4>LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN<br /></h4> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><i>First printed (Chatto)</i>, 1904<br /> +<i>Reprinted</i> 1904, '09, '10, '12<br /> +<i>(Heinemann)</i>, 1917<br /> +<br /><br /><br /> +<i>London: William Heinemann</i>, 1917<br /> +</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + +<h2>SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES</h2> +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="8" summary="toc"> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">To Edward John Trelawny</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Thalassius</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_295">295</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">On the Cliffs</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Garden of Cymodoce</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_326">326</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Birthday Ode</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="smcap">Notes</span></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + +<h2>SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="DEDICATION" id="DEDICATION"></a>DEDICATION</h2> + +<h3>TO EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNY</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>A sea-mew on a sea-king's wrist alighting,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>As the north sea-wind caught and strained and curled</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>The raven-figured flag that led men fighting</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>From field to green field of the water-world,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Might find such brief high favour at his hand</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>For wings imbrued with brine, with foam impearled,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>As these my songs require at yours on land,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>That durst not save for love's free sake require,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Being lightly born between the foam and sand,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>But reared by hope and memory and desire</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Of lives that were and life that is to be,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Even such as filled his heavenlier song with fire</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Whose very voice, that sang to set man free,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Was in your ears as ever in ours his lyre,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Once, ere the flame received him from the sea.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THALASSIUS" id="THALASSIUS"></a>THALASSIUS</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Upon the flowery forefront of the year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One wandering by the grey-green April sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Found on a reach of shingle and shallower sand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inlaid with starrier glimmering jewellery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Left for the sun's love and the light wind's cheer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along the foam-flowered strand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breeze-brightened, something nearer sea than land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the last shoreward blossom-fringe was near,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A babe asleep with flower-soft face that gleamed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To sun and seaward as it laughed and dreamed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too sure of either love for either's fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Albeit so birdlike slight and light, it seemed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor man nor mortal child of man, but fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As even its twin-born tenderer spray-flowers were,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the wind scatters like an Oread's hair.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For when July strewed fire on earth and sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The last time ere that year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of the flame of morn Cymothoe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beheld one brighter than the sunbright sphere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Move toward her from its fieriest heart, whence trod<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The live sun's very God,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Across the foam-bright water-ways that are<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As heavenlier heavens with star for answering star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on her eyes and hair and maiden mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Felt a kiss falling fierier than the South</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And heard above afar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A noise of songs and wind-enamoured wings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lutes and lyres of milder and mightier strings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And round the resonant radiance of his car<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where depth is one with height,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light heard as music, music seen as light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with that second moondawn of the spring's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fosters the first rose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A sun-child whiter than the sunlit snows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was born out of the world of sunless things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That round the round earth flows and ebbs and flows.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But he that found the sea-flower by the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And took to foster like a graft of earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was born of man's most highest and heavenliest birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Free-born as winds and stars and waves are free;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A warrior grey with glories more than years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though more of years than change the quick to dead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had rained their light and darkness on his head;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A singer that in time's and memory's ears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should leave such words to sing as all his peers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might praise with hallowing heat of rapturous tears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till all the days of human flight were fled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And at his knees his fosterling was fed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not with man's wine and bread<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor mortal mother-milk of hopes and fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But food of deep memorial days long sped;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For bread with wisdom and with song for wine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear as the full calm's emerald hyaline.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from his grave glad lips the boy would gather<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fine honey of song-notes goldener than gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More sweet than bees make of the breathing heather,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he, as glad and bold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might drink as they, and keep his spirit from cold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the boy loved his laurel-laden hair</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">As his own father's risen on the eastern air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that less white brow-binding bayleaf bloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than all flowers his father's eyes relume;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And those high songs he heard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than all notes of any landward bird,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than all sounds less free<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than the wind's quiring to the choral sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">High things the high song taught him; how the breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too frail for life may be more strong than death;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And this poor flash of sense in life, that gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a ghost's glory in dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More stabile than the world's own heart's root seems,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By that strong faith of lordliest love which gives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To death's own sightless-seeming eyes a light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clearer, to death's bare bones a verier might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than shines or strikes from any man that lives.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How he that loves life overmuch shall die<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dog's death, utterly:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he that much less loves it than he hates<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All wrongdoing that is done<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Anywhere always underneath the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall live a mightier life than time's or fate's.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One fairer thing he shewed him, and in might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More strong than day and night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose strengths build up time's towering period:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, one thing stronger and more high than God,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which if man had not, then should God not be:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And that was Liberty.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gladly should man die to gain, he said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freedom; and gladlier, having lost, lie dead.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For man's earth was not, nor the sweet sea-waves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His, nor his own land, nor its very graves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Except they bred not, bore not, hid not slaves:</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">But all of all that is,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were one man free in body and soul, were his.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And the song softened, even as heaven by night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Softens, from sunnier down to starrier light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with its moonbright breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blessed life for death's sake, and for life's sake death.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till as the moon's own beam and breath confuse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In one clear hueless haze of glimmering hues<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sea's line and the land's line and the sky's,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And light for love of darkness almost dies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As darkness only lives for light's dear love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose hands the web of night is woven of,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So in that heaven of wondrous words were life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And death brought out of strife;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, by that strong spell of serene increase<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brought out of strife to peace.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And the song lightened, as the wind at morn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flashes, and even with lightning of the wind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Night's thick-spun web is thinned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all its weft unwoven and overworn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shrinks, as might love from scorn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as when wind and light on water and land<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leap as twin gods from heavenward hand in hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with the sound and splendour of their leap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strike darkness dead, and daunt the spirit of sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And burn it up with fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So with the light that lightened from the lyre<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was all the bright heat in the child's heart stirred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And blown with blasts of music into flame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till even his sense became<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fire, as the sense that fires the singing bird<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose song calls night by name.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the soul within the sense began<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The manlike passion of a godlike man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the sense within the soul again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thoughts that make men of gods and gods of men.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For love the high song taught him: love that turns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God's heart toward man as man's to Godward; love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That life and death and life are fashioned of,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the first breath that burns<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Half kindled on the flowerlike yeanling's lip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So light and faint that life seems like to slip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To that yet weaklier drawn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When sunset dies of night's devouring dawn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the man dying not wholly as all men dies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If aught be left of his in live men's eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of the dawnless dark of death to rise;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If aught of deed or word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be seen for all time or of all time heard.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love, that though body and soul were overthrown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Should live for love's sake of itself alone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though spirit and flesh were one thing doomed and dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not wholly annihilated.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeing even the hoariest ash-flake that the pyre<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Drops, and forgets the thing was once afire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gave its heart to feed the pile's full flame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till its own heart its own heat overcame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outlives its own life, though by scarce a span,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As such men dying outlive themselves in man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outlive themselves for ever; if the heat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outburn the heart that kindled it, the sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outlast the flower whose soul it was, and flit<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forth of the body of it</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into some new shape of a strange perfume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More potent than its light live spirit of bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How shall not something of that soul relive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That only soul that had such gifts to give<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As lighten something even of all men's doom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even from the labouring womb<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even to the seal set on the unopening tomb?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And these the loving light of song and love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall wrap and lap round and impend above,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Imperishable; and all springs born illume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their sleep with brighter thoughts than wake the dove<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To music, when the hillside winds resume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The marriage-song of heather-flower and broom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the joy thereof.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And hate the song too taught him: hate of all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That brings or holds in thrall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of spirit or flesh, free-born ere God began,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The holy body and sacred soul of man.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wheresoever a curse was or a chain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A throne for torment or a crown for bane<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rose, moulded out of poor men's molten pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There, said he, should man's heaviest hate be set<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inexorably, to faint not or forget<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the last warmth bled forth of the last vein<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In flesh that none should call a king's again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeing wolves and dogs and birds that plague-strike air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leave the last bone of all the carrion bare.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And hope the high song taught him: hope whose eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can sound the seas unsoundable, the skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inaccessible of eyesight; that can see</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">What earth beholds not, hear what wind and sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hear not, and speak what all these crying in one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can speak not to the sun.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For in her sovereign eyelight all things are<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear as the closest seen and kindlier star<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That marries morn and even and winter and spring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With one love's golden ring.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For she can see the days of man, the birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of good and death of evil things on earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inevitable and infinite, and sure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As present pain is, or herself is pure.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, she can hear and see, beyond all things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That lighten from before Time's thunderous wings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the awful circle of wheel-winged periods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tempest of the twilight of all Gods:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And higher than all the circling course they ran<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sundawn of the spirit that was man.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And fear the song too taught him; fear to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worthless the dear love of the wind and sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bred him fearless, like a sea-mew reared<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In rocks of man's foot feared,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where nought of wingless life may sing or shine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fear to wax worthless of that heaven he had<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When all the life in all his limbs was glad<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the drops in all his veins were wine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the pulses music; when his heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Singing, bade heaven and wind and sea bear part<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In one live song's reiterance, and they bore:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fear to go crownless of the flower he wore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the winds loved him and the waters knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blithest life that clove their blithe life through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With living limbs exultant, or held strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More amorous than all dalliance aye anew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the bright breath and strength of their large life,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">With all strong wrath of all sheer winds that blew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All glories of all storms of the air that fell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prone, ineluctable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With roar from heaven of revel, and with hue<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As of a heaven turned hell.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For when the red blast of their breath had made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All heaven aflush with light more dire than shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He felt it in his blood and eyes and hair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Burn as if all the fires of the earth and air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had laid strong hold upon his flesh, and stung<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul behind it as with serpent's tongue,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forked like the loveliest lightnings: nor could bear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But hardly, half distraught with strong delight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joy that like a garment wrapped him round<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lapped him over and under<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With raiment of great light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rapture of great sound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At every loud leap earthward of the thunder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From heaven's most furthest bound:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So seemed all heaven in hearing and in sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alive and mad with glory and angry joy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That something of its marvellous mirth and might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moved even to madness, fledged as even for flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blood and spirit of one but mortal boy.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So, clothed with love and fear that love makes great,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And armed with hope and hate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He set first foot upon the spring-flowered ways<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That all feet pass and praise.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And one dim dawn between the winter and spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the sharp harsh wind harrying heaven and earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To put back April that had borne his birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From sunward on her sunniest shower-struck wing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With tears and laughter for the dew-dropt thing,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slight as indeed a dew-drop, by the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One met him lovelier than all men may be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God-featured, with god's eyes; and in their might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Somewhat that drew men's own to mar their sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even of all eyes drawn toward him: and his mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was as the very rose of all men's youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One rose of all the rose-beds in the world:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But round his brows the curls were snakes that curled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like his tongue a serpent's; and his voice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Speaks death, and bids rejoice.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet then he spake no word, seeming as dumb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dumb thing mild and hurtless; nor at first<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From his bowed eyes seemed any light to come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor his meek lips for blood or tears to thirst:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But as one blind and mute in mild sweet wise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pleading for pity of piteous lips and eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He strayed with faint bare lily-lovely feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Helpless, and flowerlike sweet:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor might man see, not having word hereof,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That this of all gods was the great god Love.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And seeing him lovely and like a little child<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That wellnigh wept for wonder that it smiled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And was so feeble and fearful, with soft speech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The youth bespake him softly; but there fell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the sweet lips no sweet word audible<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ear or thought might reach:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No sound to make the dim cold silence glad,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No breath to thaw the hard harsh air with heat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only the saddest smile of all things sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only the sweetest smile of all things sad.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And so they went together one green way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till April dying made free the world for May;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on his guide suddenly Love's face turned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in his blind eyes burned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hard light and heat of laughter; and like flame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That opens in a mountain's ravening mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To blear and sear the sunlight from the south,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His mute mouth opened, and his first word came:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Knowest thou me now by name?'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all his stature waxed immeasurable,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As of one shadowing heaven and lightening hell;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And statelier stood he than a tower that stands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And darkens with its darkness far-off sands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereon the sky leans red;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with a voice that stilled the winds he said:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'I am he that was thy lord before thy birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I am he that is thy lord till thou turn earth:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I make the night more dark, and all the morrow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dark as the night whose darkness was my breath:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O fool, my name is sorrow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou fool, my name is death.'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And he that heard spake not, and looked right on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Again, and Love was gone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Through many a night toward many a wearier day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His spirit bore his body down its way.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through many a day toward many a wearier night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His soul sustained his sorrows in her sight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And earth was bitter, and heaven, and even the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sorrowful even as he.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wind helped not, and the sun was dumb;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with too long strong stress of grief to be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His heart grew sere and numb.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And one bright eve ere summer in autumn sank<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At stardawn standing on a grey sea-bank</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">He felt the wind fitfully shift and heave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As toward a stormier eve;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the wan wide sea shuddered; and earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shook underfoot as toward some timeless birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Intolerable and inevitable; and all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaven, darkling, trembled like a stricken thrall.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And far out of the quivering east, and far<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From past the moonrise and its guiding star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Began a noise of tempest and a light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was not of the lightning; and a sound<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rang with it round and round<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was not of the thunder; and a flight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As of blown clouds by night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That was not of them; and with songs and cries<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sang and shrieked their soul out at the skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A shapeless earthly storm of shapes began<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From all ways round to move in on the man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clamorous against him silent; and their feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were as the wind's are fleet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And their shrill songs were as wild birds' are sweet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And as when all the world of earth was wronged<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the host of all men driven afoam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the red hand of Rome,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round some fierce amphitheatre overthronged<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With fair clear faces full of bloodier lust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than swells and stings the tiger when his mood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is fieriest after blood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drunk with trampling of the murderous must<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That soaks and stains the tortuous close-coiled wood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made monstrous with its myriad-mustering brood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Face by fair face panted and gleamed and pressed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And breast by passionate breast</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heaved hot with ravenous rapture, as they quaffed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The red ripe full fume of the deep live draught,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sharp quick reek of keen fresh bloodshed, blown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the dense deep drift up to the emperor's throne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the under steaming sands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With clamour of all-applausive throats and hands,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mingling in mirthful time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With shrill blithe mockeries of the lithe-limbed mime:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So from somewhence far forth of the unbeholden,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dreadfully driven from over and after and under,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fierce, blown through fifes of brazen blast and golden,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With sound of chiming waves that drown the thunder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or thunder that strikes dumb the sea's own chimes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Began the bellowing of the bull-voiced mimes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Terrible; firs bowed down as briars or palms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even at the breathless blast as of a breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fulfilled with clamour and clangour and storms of psalms;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Red hands rent up the roots of old-world trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thick flames of torches tossed as tumbling seas<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made mad the moonless and infuriate air<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, ravening, revelled in the riotous hair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And raiment of the furred Bassarides.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So came all those in on him; and his heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As out of sleep suddenly struck astart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Danced, and his flesh took fire of theirs, and grief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was as a last year's leaf<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blown dead far down the wind's way; and he set<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His pale mouth to the brightest mouth it met<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That laughed for love against his lips, and bade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Follow; and in following all his blood grew glad</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And as again a sea-bird's; for the wind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Took him to bathe him deep round breast and brow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not as it takes a dead leaf drained and thinned,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But as the brightest bay-flower blown on bough,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set springing toward it singing: and they rode<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By many a vine-leafed, many a rose-hung road,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exalt with exultation; many a night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set all its stars upon them as for spies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On many a moon-bewildering mountain-height<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where he rode only by the fierier light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of his dread lady's hot sweet hungering eyes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the moon wandered witless of her way,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spell-stricken by strong magic in such wise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As wizards use to set the stars astray.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in his ears the music that makes mad<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beat always; and what way the music bade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That alway rode he; nor was any sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His, nor from height nor deep.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But heaven was as red iron, slumberless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And had no heart to bless;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And earth lay sere and darkling as distraught,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And help in her was nought.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then many a midnight, many a morn and even,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His mother, passing forth of her fair heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With goodlier gifts than all save gods can give<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From earth or from the heaven where sea-things live,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With shine of sea-flowers through the bay-leaf braid<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Woven for a crown her foam-white hands had made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To crown him with land's laurel and sea-dew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sought the sea-bird that was her boy: but he<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sat panther-throned beside Erigone,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Riding the red ways of the revel through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Midmost of pale-mouthed passion's crownless crew.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till on some winter's dawn of some dim year<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He let the vine-bit on the panther's lip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slide, and the green rein slip,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And set his eyes to seaward, nor gave ear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If sound from landward hailed him, dire or dear;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And passing forth of all those fair fierce ranks<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Back to the grey sea-banks,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Against a sea-rock lying, aslant the steep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell after many sleepless dreams on sleep.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And in his sleep the dun green light was shed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heavily round his head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That through the veil of sea falls fathom-deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blurred like a lamp's that when the night drops dead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dies; and his eyes gat grace of sleep to see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The deep divine dark dayshine of the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dense water-walls and clear dusk water-ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broad-based, or branching as a sea-flower sprays<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That side or this dividing; and anew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The glory of all her glories that he knew.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in sharp rapture of recovering tears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He woke on fire with yearnings of old years,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pure as one purged of pain that passion bore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ill child of bitter mother; for his own<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Looked laughing toward him from her midsea throne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up toward him there ashore.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thence in his heart the great same joy began,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of child that made him man:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And turned again from all hearts else on quest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He communed with his own heart, and had rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like sea-winds upon loud waters ran<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His days and dreams together, till the joy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Burned in him of the boy.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the earth's great comfort and the sweet sea's breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breathed and blew life in where was heartless death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death spirit-stricken of soul-sick days, where strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of thought and flesh made mock of death and life.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And grace returned upon him of his birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where heaven was mixed with heavenlike sea and earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And song shot forth strong wings that took the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From inward, fledged with might of sorrow and mirth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And father's fire made mortal in his son.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor was not spirit of strength in blast and breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To exalt again the sun's child and the sea's;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For as wild mares in Thessaly grow great<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With child of ravishing winds, that violate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their leaping length of limb with manes like fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And eyes outburning heaven's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With fires more violent than the lightning levin's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And breath drained out and desperate of desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even so the spirit in him, when winds grew strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grew great with child of song.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor less than when his veins first leapt for joy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To draw delight in such as burns a boy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now too the soul of all his senses felt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The passionate pride of deep sea-pulses dealt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through nerve and jubilant vein<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As from the love and largess of old time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with his heart again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tidal throb of all the tides keep rhyme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And charm him from his own soul's separate sense<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With infinite and invasive influence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That made strength sweet in him and sweetness strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being now no more a singer, but a song.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Till one clear day when brighter sea-wind blew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And louder sea-shine lightened, for the waves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were full of godhead and the light that saves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His father's, and their spirit had pierced him through,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He felt strange breath and light all round him shed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bowed him down with rapture; and he knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His father's hand, hallowing his humbled head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the old great voice of the old good time, that said:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Child of my sunlight and the sea, from birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A fosterling and fugitive on earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sleepless of soul as wind or wave or fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A manchild with an ungrown God's desire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because thou hast loved nought mortal more than me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy father, and thy mother-hearted sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because thou hast set thine heart to sing, and sold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life and life's love for song, God's living gold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because thou hast given thy flower and fire of youth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To feed men's hearts with visions, truer than truth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because thou hast kept in those world-wandering eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The light that makes me music of the skies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because thou hast heard with world-unwearied ears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The music that puts light into the spheres;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have therefore in thine heart and in thy mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sound of song that mingles north and south,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The song of all the winds that sing of me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in thy soul the sense of all the sea."<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="ON_THE_CLIFFS" id="ON_THE_CLIFFS"></a>ON THE CLIFFS</h2> + +<p class="center"><i>ιμεροωνος αηδων.</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">Sappho.</span><br /></p> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Between the moondawn and the sundown here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The twilight hangs half starless; half the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still quivers as for love or pain or fear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or pleasure mightier than these all may be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A man's live heart might beat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherein a God's with mortal blood should meet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fill its pulse too full to bear the strain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With fear or love or pleasure's twin-born, pain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fiercely the gaunt woods to the grim soil cling<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bears for all fair fruits<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wan wild sparse flowers of windy and wintry spring<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between the tortive serpent-shapen roots<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherethrough their dim growth hardly strikes and shoots<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shews one gracious thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hardly, to speak for summer one sweet word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of summer's self scarce heard.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But higher the steep green sterile fields, thick-set<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With flowerless hawthorn even to the upward verge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whence the woods gathering watch new cliffs emerge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Higher than their highest of crowns that sea-winds fret,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hold fast, for all that night or wind can say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some pale pure colour yet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too dim for green and luminous for grey.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between the climbing inland cliffs above<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And these beneath that breast and break the bay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A barren peace too soft for hate or love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broods on an hour too dim for night or day.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O wind, O wingless wind that walk'st the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Weak wind, wing-broken, wearier wind than we,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who are yet not spirit-broken, maimed like thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who wail not in our inward night as thou<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the outer darkness now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What word has the old sea given thee for mine ear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From thy faint lips to hear?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For some word would she send me, knowing not how.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nay, what far other word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than ever of her was spoken, or of me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or all my winged white kinsfolk of the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between fresh wave and wave was ever heard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cleaves the clear dark enwinding tree with tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too close for stars to separate and to see<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enmeshed in multitudinous unity?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What voice of what strong God hath stormed and stirred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fortressed rock of silence, rent apart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even to the core Night's all-maternal heart?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What voice of God grown heavenlier in a bird,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made keener of edge to smite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than lightning—yea, thou knowest, O mother Night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keen as that cry from thy strange children sent<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wherewith the Athenian judgment-shrine was rent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For wrath that all their wrath was vainly spent,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their wrath for wrong made right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By justice in her own divine despite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bade pass forth unblamed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sinless matricide and unashamed?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, what new cry is this, what note more bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than their song's wing of words was dark of flight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What word is this thou hast heard,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thine and not thine or theirs, O Night, what word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More keen than lightning and more sweet than light?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As all men's hearts grew godlike in one bird<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all those hearts cried on thee, crying with might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hear us, O mother Night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dumb is the mouth of darkness as of death:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light, sound and life are one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the eyes and lips of dawn that draw the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hear what first child's word with glimmering breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their weak wan weanling child the twilight saith;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But night makes answer none.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">God, if thou be God,—bird, if bird thou be,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do thou then answer me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For but one word, what wind soever blow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is blown up usward ever from the sea.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In fruitless years of youth dead long ago<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And deep beneath their own dead leaves and snow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Buried, I heard with bitter heart and sere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The same sea's word unchangeable, nor knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But that mine own life-days were changeless too<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sharp and salt with unshed tear on tear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And cold and fierce and barren; and my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sickening, swam weakly with bated breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In a deep sea like death,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And felt the wind buffet her face with brine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hard, and harsh thought on thought in long bleak roll<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blown by keen gusts of memory sad as thine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heap the weight up of pain, and break, and leave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strength scarce enough to grieve<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the sick heavy spirit, unmanned with strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of waves that beat at the tired lips of life.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nay, sad may be man's memory, sad may be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dream he weaves him as for shadow of thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But scarce one breathing-space, one heartbeat long,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wilt thou take shadow of sadness on thy song.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not thou, being more than man or man's desire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being bird and God in one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With throat of gold and spirit of the sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun whom all our souls and songs call sire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose godhead gave thee, chosen of all our quire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thee only of all that serve, of all that sing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before our sire and king,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Borne up some space on time's world-wandering wing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This gift, this doom, to bear till time's wing tire—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life everlasting of eternal fire.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thee only of all; yet can no memory say<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How many a night and day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart has been as thy heart, and my life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As thy life is, a sleepless hidden thing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full of the thirst and hunger of winter and spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That seeks its food not in such love or strife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As fill men's hearts with passionate hours and rest.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From no loved lips and on no loving breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have I sought ever for such gifts as bring</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comfort, to stay the secret soul with sleep.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joys, the loves, the labours, whence men reap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rathe fruit of hopes and fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have made not mine; the best of all my days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have been as those fair fruitless summer strays,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those water-waifs that but the sea-wind steers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flakes of glad foam or flowers on footless ways<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That take the wind in season and the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when the wind wills is their season done.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For all my days as all thy days from birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart as thy heart was in me as thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fire; and not all the fountains of the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have waves enough to quench it, nor on earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is fuel enough to feed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While day sows night and night sows day for seed.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We were not marked for sorrow, thou nor I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For joy nor sorrow, sister, were we made,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To take delight and grief to live and die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Assuaged by pleasures or by pains affrayed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That melt men's hearts and alter; we retain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A memory mastering pleasure and all pain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A spirit within the sense of ear and eye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A soul behind the soul, that seeks and sings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And makes our life move only with its wings<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And feed but from its lips, that in return<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Feed of our hearts wherein the old fires that burn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have strength not to consume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor glory enough to exalt us past our doom.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Ah, ah, the doom</i> (thou knowest whence rang that wail)<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Of the shrill nightingale!</i></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">(From whose wild lips, thou knowest, that wail was thrown)<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For round about her have the great gods cast</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>A wing-borne body, and clothed her close and fast</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>With a sweet life that hath no part in moan.</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>But me, for me</i> (how hadst thou heart to hear?)<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Remains a sundering with the two-edged spear.</i><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Ah, for her doom!</i> so cried in presage then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bodeful bondslave of the king of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And might not win her will.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too close the entangling dragnet woven of crime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The snare of ill new-born of elder ill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The curse of new time for an elder time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had caught, and held her yet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enmeshed intolerably in the intolerant net,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who thought with craft to mock the God most high,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And win by wiles his crown of prophecy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the Sun's hand sublime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As God were man, to spare or to forget.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But thou,—the gods have given thee and forgiven thee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than our master gave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That strange-eyed spirit-wounded strange-tongued slave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There questing houndlike where the roofs red-wet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reeked as a wet red grave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life everlasting has their strange grace given thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even hers whom thou wast wont to sing and serve<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With eyes, but not with song, too swift to swerve;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet might not even thine eyes estranged estrange her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who seeing thee too, but inly, burn and bleed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like that pale princess-priest of Priam's seed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For stranger service gave thee guerdon stranger;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">If this indeed be guerdon, this indeed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her mercy, this thy meed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou, being more than all we born, being higher<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than all heads crowned of him that only gives<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The light whereby man lives,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bay that bids man moved of God's desire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lay hand on lute or lyre,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set lip to trumpet or deflowered green reed—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If this were given thee for a grace indeed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou, being first of all these, thou alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shouldst have the grace to die not, but to live<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lose nor change one pulse of song, one tone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all that were thy lady's and thine own,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy lady's whom thou criedst on to forgive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou, priest and sacrifice on the altar-stone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where none may worship not of all that live,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love's priestess, errant on dark ways diverse;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If this were grace indeed for Love to give,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If this indeed were blessing and no curse.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Name above all names that are lights above,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have loved, praised, pitied, crowned and done thee wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O thou past praise and pity; thou the sole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Utterly deathless, perfect only and whole<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Immortal, body and soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For over all whom time hath overpast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shadow of sleep inexorable is cast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The implacable sweet shadow of perfect sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That gives not back what life gives death to keep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, all that lived and loved and sang and sinned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are all borne down death's cold sweet soundless wind</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">That blows all night and knows not whom its breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Darkling, may touch to death:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But one that wind hath touched and changed not,—one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose body and soul are parcel of the sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One that earth's fire could burn not, nor the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quench; nor might human doom take hold on thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All praise, all pity, all dreams have done thee wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All love, with eyes love-blinded from above;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Hast thou none other answer then for me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than the air may have of thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the earth's warm woodlands girdling with green girth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy secret sleepless burning life on earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or even the sea that once, being woman crowned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And girt with fire and glory of anguish round,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou wert so fain to seek to, fain to crave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If she would hear thee and save<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And give thee comfort of thy great green grave?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because I have known thee always who thou art,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou knowest, have known thee to thy heart's own heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor ever have given light ear to storied song<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That did thy sweet name sweet unwitting wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor ever have called thee nor would call for shame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou knowest, but inly by thine only name,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sappho—because I have known thee and loved, hast thou<br /></span> +<span class="i0">None other answer now?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As brother and sister were we, child and bird,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since thy first Lesbian word</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flamed on me, and I knew not whence I knew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This was the song that struck my whole soul through,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pierced my keen spirit of sense with edge more keen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even when I knew not,—even ere sooth was seen,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thou wast but the tawny sweet winged thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose cry was but of spring.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And yet even so thine ear should hear me—yea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hear me this nightfall by this northland bay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even for their sake whose loud good word I had,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Singing of thee in the all-beloved clime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Once, where the windy wine of spring makes mad<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our sisters of Majano, who kept time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear to my choral rhyme.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet was the song acclaimed of these aloud<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose praise had made mute humbleness misproud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The song with answering song applauded thus,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But of that Daulian dream of Itylus.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So but for love's love haply was it—nay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How else?—that even their song took my song's part,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For love of love and sweetness of sweet heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or god-given glorious madness of mid May<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And heat of heart and hunger and thirst to sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full of the new wine of the wind of spring.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Or if this were not, and it be not sin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To hold myself in spirit of thy sweet kin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In heart and spirit of song;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If this my great love do thy grace no wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy grace that gave me grace to dwell therein;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If thy gods thus be my gods, and their will<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made my song part of thy song—even such part<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As man's hath of God's heart—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And my life like as thy life to fulfil;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">What have our gods then given us? Ah, to thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sister, much more, much happier than to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Much happier things they have given, and more of grace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than falls to man's light race;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For lighter are we, all our love and pain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lighter than thine, who knowest of time or place<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus much, that place nor time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can heal or hurt or lull or change again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The singing soul that makes his soul sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who hears the far fall of its fire-fledged rhyme<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fill darkness as with bright and burning rain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till all the live gloom inly glows, and light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seems with the sound to cleave the core of night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The singing soul that moves thee, and that moved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thou wast woman, and their songs divine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who mixed for Grecian mouths heaven's lyric wine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell dumb, fell down reproved<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before one sovereign Lesbian song of thine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That soul, though love and life had fain held fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wind-winged with fiery music, rose and past<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the indrawn hollow of earth and heaven and hell,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As through some strait sea-shell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wide sea's immemorial song,—the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That sings and breathes in strange men's ears of thee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How in her barren bride-bed, void and vast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even thy soul sang itself to sleep at last.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To sleep? Ah, then, what song is this, that here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Makes all the night one ear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One ear fulfilled and mad with music, one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heart kindling as the heart of heaven, to hear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A song more fiery than the awakening sun</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sings, when his song sets fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the air and clouds that build the dead night's pyre?<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>O thou of divers-coloured mind, O thou</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Deathless, God's daughter subtle-souled</i>—lo, now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now too the song above all songs, in flight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Higher than the day-star's height,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sweet as sound the moving wings of night!<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Thou of the divers-coloured seat</i>—behold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her very song of old!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>O deathless, O God's daughter subtle-souled!</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">That same cry through this boskage overhead<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rings round reiterated,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Palpitates as the last palpitated,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The last that panted through her lips and died<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not down this grey north sea's half sapped cliff-side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That crumbles toward the coastline, year by year<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More near the sands and near;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The last loud lyric fiery cry she cried,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heard once on heights Leucadian,—heard not here.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not here; for this that fires our northland night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This is the song that made<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love fearful, even the heart of love afraid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the great anguish of its great delight.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No swan-song, no far-fluttering half-drawn breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No word that love of love's sweet nature saith,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No dirge that lulls the narrowing lids of death,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No healing hymn of peace-prevented strife,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This is her song of life.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>I loved thee</i>,—hark, one tenderer note than all—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Atthis, of old time, once</i>—one low long fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sighing—one long low lovely loveless call,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dying—one pause in song so flamelike fast—<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Atthis, long since in old time overpast</i>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One soft first pause and last.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One,—then the old rage of rapture's fieriest rain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Storms all the music-maddened night again.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Child of God, close craftswoman, I beseech thee,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Bid not ache nor agony break nor master,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Lady, my spirit</i>—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O thou her mistress, might her cry not reach thee?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our Lady of all men's loves, could Love go past her,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pass, and not hear it?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She hears not as she heard not; hears not me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O treble-natured mystery,—how should she<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hear, or give ear?—who heard and heard not thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Heard, and went past, and heard not; but all time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hears all that all the ravin of his years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath cast not wholly out of all men's ears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dulled to death with deep dense funeral chime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of their reiterate rhyme.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And now of all songs uttering all her praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All hers who had thy praise and did thee wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Abides one song yet of her lyric days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thine only, this thy song.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O soul triune, woman and god and bird,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man, man at least has heard.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All ages call thee conqueror, and thy cry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mightiest as the least beneath the sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose heart was ever set to song, or stirred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With wind of mounting music blown more high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than wildest wing may fly,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath heard or hears,—even Æschylus as I.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when thy name was woman, and thy word<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Human,—then haply, surely then meseems<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This thy bird's note was heard on earth of none,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of none save only in dreams.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all the world then surely was but one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Song; as in heaven at highest one sceptred sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Regent, on earth here surely without fail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One only, one imperious nightingale.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dumb was the field, the woodland mute, the lawn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Silent; the hill was tongueless as the vale<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even when the last fair waif of cloud that felt<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its heart beneath the colouring moonrays melt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At high midnoon of midnight half withdrawn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bared all the sudden deep divine moondawn.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, unsaluted by her twin-born tune,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That latter timeless morning of the moon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rose past its hour of moonrise; clouds gave way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the old reconquering ray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But no song answering made it more than day;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No cry of song by night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shot fire into the cloud-constraining light.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One only, one Æolian island heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thrill, but through no bird's throat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In one strange manlike maiden's godlike note,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The song of all these as a single bird.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till the sea's portal was as funeral gate<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For that sole singer in all time's ageless date<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Singled and signed for so triumphal fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All nightingales but one in all the world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All her sweet life were silent; only then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When her life's wing of womanhood was furled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their cry, this cry of thine was heard again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As of me now, of any born of men.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through sleepless clear spring nights filled full of thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rekindled here, thy ruling song has thrilled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The deep dark air and subtle tender sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And breathless hearts with one bright sound fulfilled.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or at midnoon to me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swimming, and birds about my happier head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Skimming, one smooth soft way by water and air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To these my bright born brethren and to me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath not the clear wind borne or seemed to bear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A song wherein all earth and heaven and sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were molten in one music made of thee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To enforce us, O our sister of the shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Look once in heart back landward and adore?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For songless were we sea-mews, yet had we<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More joy than all things joyful of thee—more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haply, than all things happiest; nay, save thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In thy strong rapture of imperious joy<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too high for heart of sea-borne bird or boy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What living things were happiest if not we?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But knowing not love nor change nor wrath nor wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No more we knew of song.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Song, and the secrets of it, and their might,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What blessings curse it and what curses bless,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know them since my spirit had first in sight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clear as thy song's words or the live sun's light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That held the fire eternal; eye and ear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were as a god's to see, a god's to hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through all his hours of daily and nightly chime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sundering of the two-edged spear of time:</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">The spear that pierces even the sevenfold shields<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of mightiest Memory, mother of all songs made,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wastes all songs as roseleaves kissed and frayed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As here the harvest of the foam-flowered fields;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thine the spear may waste not that he wields<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Since first the God whose soul is man's live breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun whose face hath our sun's face for shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Put all the light of life and love and death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too strong for life, but not for love too strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where pain makes peace with pleasure in thy song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in thine heart, where love and song make strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fire everlasting of eternal life.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_GARDEN_OF_CYMODOCE" id="THE_GARDEN_OF_CYMODOCE"></a>THE GARDEN OF CYMODOCE</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sea, and bright wind, and heaven of ardent air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More dear than all things earth-born; O to me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mother more dear than love's own longing, sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More than love's eyes are, fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be with my spirit of song as wings to bear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As fire to feel and breathe and brighten; be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A spirit of sense more deep of deity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A light of love, if love may be, more strong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In me than very song.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For song I have loved with second love, but thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thee first, thee, mother; ere my songs had breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That love of loves, whose bondage makes man free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was in me strong as death.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And seeing no slave may love thee, no, not one<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That loves not freedom more,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And more for thy sake loves her, and for hers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thee; or that hates not, on whate'er thy shore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or what thy wave soever, all things done<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of man beneath the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In his despite and thine, to cross and curse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your light and song that as with lamp and verse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Guide safe the strength of our sphered universe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy breath it was, thou knowest, and none but thine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That taught me love of one thing more divine.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 1.</span><span class="i4">Ah, yet my youth was old<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Its first years dead and cold<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As last year's autumn's gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all my spirit of singing sick and sad and sere,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or ever I might behold<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The fairest of thy fold<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Engirt, enringed, enrolled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In all thy flower-sweet flock of islands dear and near.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 2.</span><span class="i4">Yet in my heart I deemed<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The fairest things, meseemed,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Truth, dreaming, ever dreamed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had made mine eyes already like a god's to see:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of all sea-things that were<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Clothed on with water and air,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That none could live more fair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than thy sweet love long since had shown for love to me.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 1.</span><span class="i4">I knew not, mother of mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That one birth more divine<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Than all births else of thine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That hang like flowers or jewels on thy deep soft breast<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Was left for me to shine<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Above thy girdling line<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of bright and breathing brine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To take mine eyes with rapture and my sense with rest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i>2.</span><span class="i4">That this was left for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Mother, to have of thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To touch, to taste, to see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To feel as fire fulfilling all my blood and breath,</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i4">As wine of living fire<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Keen as the heart's desire<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That makes the heart its pyre<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on its burning visions burns itself to death.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For here of all thy waters, here of all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy windy ways the wildest, and beset<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As some beleaguered city's war-breached wall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With deaths enmeshed all round it in deep net,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thick sown with rocks deadlier than steel, and fierce<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With loud cross-countering currents, where the ship<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flags, flickering like a wind-bewildered leaf,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The densest weft of waves that prow may pierce<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Coils round the sharpest warp of shoals that dip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Suddenly, scarce well under for one brief<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Keen breathing-space between the streams adverse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarce showing the fanged edge of one hungering lip<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or one tooth lipless of the ravening reef;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And midmost of the murderous water's web<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All round it stretched and spun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laughs, reckless of rough tide and raging ebb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The loveliest thing that shines against the sun.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 3.</span><span class="i0">O flower of all wind-flowers and sea-flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Made lovelier by love of the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than thy golden own field-flowers, or tree-flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Like foam of the sea-facing tree!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No foot but the seamew's there settles<br /></span> +<span class="i1">On the spikes of thine anthers like horns,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With snow-coloured spray for thy petals,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Black rocks for thy thorns.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 3.</span><span class="i0">Was it here, in the waste of his waters,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That the lordly north wind, when his love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the fairest of many king's daughters<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Bore down for a spoil from above,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chose forth of all farthest far islands<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As a haven to harbour her head,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all lowlands on earth and all highlands,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">His bride-worthy bed?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 4.</span><span class="i0">Or haply, my sea-flower, he found thee<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Made fast as with anchors to land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And broke, that his waves might be round thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Thy fetters like rivets of sand?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And afar by the blast of him drifted<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Thy blossom of beauty was borne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a lark by the heart in her lifted<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To mix with the morn?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 4.</span><span class="i0">By what rapture of rage, by what vision<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of a heavenlier heaven than above,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was he moved to devise thy division<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From the land as a rest for his love?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a nest when his wings would remeasure<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The ways where of old they would be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a bride-bed upbuilt for his pleasure<br /></span> +<span class="i3">By sea-rock and sea?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For in no deeps of midmost inland May<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More flowerbright flowers the hawthorn, or more sweet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Swells the wild gold of the earth for wandering feet;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For on no northland way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Crowds the close whin-bloom closer, set like thee</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">With thorns about for fangs of sea-rock shown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through blithe lips of the bitter brine to lee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor blithelier landward comes the sea-wind blown,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor blithelier leaps the land-wind back to sea:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor louder springs the living song of birds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To shame our sweetest words.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in the narrowest of thine hollowest hold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For joy thine aspens quiver as though for cold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And many a self-lit flower-illumined tree<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Outlaughs with snowbright or with rosebright glee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The laughter of the fields whose laugh is gold.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, even from depth to height,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even thine own beauty with its own delight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fulfils thine heart in thee an hundredfold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the larger hearts of islands bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With less intense contraction of desire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Self-satiate, centred in its own deep fire;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of shores not self-enchanted and entranced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By heavenly severance from all shadow of mirth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or mourning upon earth:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As thou, by no similitude enhanced,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By no fair foil made fairer, but alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fair as could be no beauty save thine own,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wondrous as no world-beholden wonder:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Throned, with the world's most perilous sea for throne,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And praised from all its choral throats of thunder.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 5.</span><span class="i3">Yet one praise hast thou, holier<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Than praise of theirs may be,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To exalt thee, wert thou lowlier<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Than all that take the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i3">With shores whence waves ebb slowlier<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Than these fall off from thee;</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 5.</span><span class="i3">That One, whose name gives glory,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">One man whose life makes light,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">One crowned and throned in story<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Above all empire's height,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Came, where thy straits run hoary,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To hold thee fast in sight;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 6.</span><span class="i3">With hallowing eyes to hold thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With rapturous heart to read,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To encompass and enfold thee<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With love whence all men feed,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To brighten and behold thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Who is mightiest of man's seed:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 6.</span><span class="i3">More strong than strong disaster,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">For fate and fear too strong;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Earth's friend, whose eyes look past her,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whose hands would purge of wrong;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Our lord, our light, our master,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whose word sums up all song.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 7.</span><span class="i3">Be it April or September<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That plays his perfect part,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Burn June or blow December,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thou canst not in thine heart<br /></span> +<span class="i3">But rapturously remember,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All heavenlike as thou art,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 7.</span><span class="i3">Whose footfall made thee fairer,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whose passage more divine,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Whose hand, our thunder-bearer,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Held fire that bade thee shine<br /></span> +<span class="i3">With subtler glory and rarer<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Than thrills the sun's own shrine.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who knows how then his godlike banished gaze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turned haply from its goal of natural days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And homeward hunger for the clear French clime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Toward English earth, whereunder now the Accursed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rots, in the hate of all men's hearts inhearsed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A carrion ranker to the sense of time<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For that sepulchral gift of stone and lime<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By royal grace laid on it, less of weight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than the load laid by fate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fate, misbegotten child of his own crime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Son of as foul a bastard-bearing birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As even his own on earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Less heavy than the load of cursing piled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By loyal grace of all souls undefiled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On one man's head, whose reeking soul made rotten<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The loathed live corpse on earth once misbegotten?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when our Master's homeless feet were here<br /></span> +<span class="i0">France yet was foul with joy more foul than fear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And slavery chosen, more vile by choice of chance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than dull damnation of inheritance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From Russian year to year<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alas fair mother of men, alas my France,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What ailed thee so to fall, that wert so dear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all men's sake to all men, in such trance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plague-stricken? Had the very Gods, that saw<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy glory lighten on us for a law,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy gospel go before us for a guide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had these waxed envious of our love and awe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or was it less their envy than thy pride<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bared thy breast for the obscene vulture-claw,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High priestess, by whose mouth Love prophesied<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fate should yet mean freedom? Howsoever,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That hour, the helper of men's hearts, we praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which blots out of man's book of after days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The name above all names abhorred for ever.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And His name shall we praise not, whom these flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These rocks and ravening waters bound for girth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round this wild starry spanlong plot of earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beheld, the mightier for those heavier hours<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bowed his heart not down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor marred one crowning blossom of his crown?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For surely, might we say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even from the dark deep sea-gate that makes way<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through channelled darkness for the darkling day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hardly to let men's faltering footfall win<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sunless passage in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where breaks a world aflower against the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A small sweet world of wave-encompassed wonder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Kept from the wearier landward world asunder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With violence of wild waters, and with thunder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of many winds as one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To where the keen sea-current grinds and frets<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The black bright sheer twin flameless Altarlets<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That lack no live blood-sacrifice they crave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of shipwreck and the shrine-subservient wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Having for priest the storm-wind, and for choir<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lightnings and clouds whose prayer and praise are fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All the isle acclaimed him coming; she, the least<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all things loveliest that the sea's love hides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From strange men's insult, walled about with tides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That bid strange guests back from her flower-strewn feast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Set all her fields aflower, her flowers aflame,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To applaud him that he came.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor surely flashed not something of delight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through that steep strait of rock whose twin-cliffed height</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Links crag with crag reiterate, land with land,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By one sheer thread of narrowing precipice<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bifront, that binds and sunders<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Abyss from hollower imminent abyss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wilder isle with island, blind for bliss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sea that lightens and of wind that thunders;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor pealed not surely back from deep to steep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reverberate acclamation, steep to deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Inveterately reclaiming and replying<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Praise, and response applausive; nor the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all the sea-wind's crying,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Knew not the song her sister, even as she<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thundering, or like her confluent spring-tides brightening,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like her darkness lightening;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The song that moved about him silent, now<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both soundless wings refolded and refurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On that Promethean brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then quivering as for flight that wakes the world.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 8.</span><span class="i0">From the roots of the rocks underlying the gulfs that engird it around<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was the isle not enkindled with light of him landing, or thrilled not with sound?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, surely the sea like a harper laid hand on the shore as a lyre,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the lyre in his own for a birthright of old that was given of his sire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the hand of the child was put forth on the chords yet alive and aflame<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the hand of the God that had wrought it in heaven; and the hand was the same.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the tongue of the child spake, singing; and never a note that he sang,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the strings made answer unstricken, as though for the God they rang.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the eyes of the child shone, lightening; and touched as by life at his nod,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They shuddered with music, and quickened as though from the glance of the God.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So trembled the heart of the hills and the rocks to receive him, and yearned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With desirous delight of his presence and love that beholding him burned.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, down through the mighty twin hollows where never the sunlight shall be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep sunk under imminent earth, and subdued to the stress of the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That feel when the dim week changes by change of their tides in the dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the wave sinks under within them, reluctant, removed from its mark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even there in the terror of twilight in bloom with its blossoms ablush,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did a sense of him touch not the gleam of their flowers with a fierier flush?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though the sun they behold not for ever, yet knew they not over them One<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose soul was the soul of the morning, whose song was the song of the sun?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the secrets inviolate of sunlight in hollows untrodden of day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall he dream what are these who beholds not? or he that hath seen, shall he say?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the path is for passage of sea-mews; and he that hath glided and leapt</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over sea-grass and sea-rock, alighting as one from a citadel crept<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That his foemen beleaguer, descending by darkness and stealth, at the last<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peers under, and all is as hollow to hellward, agape and aghast.<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 8.</span><span class="i0">But afloat and afar in the darkness a tremulous colour subsides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the crimson high crest of the purple-peaked roof to the soft-coloured sides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That brighten as ever they widen till downward the level is won<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the soundless and colourless water that knows not the sense of the sun:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the crown of the culminant arch to the floor of the lakelet abloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One infinite blossom of blossoms innumerable aflush through the gloom.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All under the deeps of the darkness are glimmering; all over impends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An immeasurable infinite flower of the dark that dilates and descends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That exults and expands in its breathless and blind efflorescence of heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As it broadens and bows to the wave-ward, and breathes not, and hearkens apart.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As a beaker inverse at a feast on Olympus, exhausted of wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But inlaid as with rose from the lips of Dione that left it divine:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the lips everliving of laughter and love everlasting, that leave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the cleft of his heart who shall kiss them a snake to corrode it and cleave.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">So glimmers the gloom into glory, the glory recoils into gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the eye of the sun could not kindle, the lip not of Love could relume.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So darkens reverted the cup that the kiss of her mouth set on fire:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So blackens a brand in his eyeshot asmoulder awhile from the pyre.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For the beam from beneath and without it refrangent again from the wave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strikes up through the portal a ghostly reverse on the dome of the cave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On the depth of the dome ever darkling and dim to the crown of its arc:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the sun-coloured tapestry, sunless for ever, may soften the dark.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But within through the side-seen archway a glimmer again from the right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is the seal of the sea's tide set on the mouth of the mystery of night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the seal on the seventh day breaks but a little, that man by its mean<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May behold what the sun hath not looked on, the stars of the night have not seen.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Even like that hollow-bosomed rose, inverse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And infinite, the heaven of thy vast verse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our Master, over all our souls impends,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Imminent; we, with heart-enkindled eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upwondering, search the music-moulded skies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sphere by sweet sphere, concordant as it blends<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light of bright sound, sound of clear light, in one,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As all the stars found utterance through the sun.</span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all that heaven is like a rose in bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flower-coloured, where its own sun's fires illume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As from one central and imperious heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The whole sky's every part:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But lightening still and darkling downward, lo<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The light and darkness of it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The leaping of the lamping levin afar<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Between the full moon and the sunset star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The war-song of the sounding skies aglow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That have the herald thunder for their prophet:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From north to south the lyric lights that leap,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The tragic sundawns reddening east and west<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As with bright blood from one Promethean breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The peace of noon that strikes the sea to sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wail over the world of all that weep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The peace of night when death brings life on rest.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Goddess who gatherest all the herded waves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into thy great sweet pastureless green fold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even for our love of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I pray thee by thy power that slays and saves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take thou my song of this thy flower to keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who hast my heart in hold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from thine high place of thy garden-steep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where one sheer terrace oversees thy deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the utmost rock-reared height<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Down even to thy dear depths of night and light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Take my song's salutation; and on me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Breathe back the benediction of thy sea.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><i>Between two seas the sea-bird's wing makes halt,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Wind-weary; while with lifting head he waits</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>For breath to reinspire him from the gates</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>That open still toward sunrise on the vault</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>High-domed of morning, and in flight's default</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>With spreading sense of spirit anticipates</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>What new sea now may lure beyond the straits</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>His wings exulting that her winds exalt</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And fill them full as sails to seaward spread,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>Fulfilled with fair speed's promise. Pass, my song,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Forth to the haven of thy desire and dread,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i1"><i>The presence of our lord, long loved and long</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Far off above beholden, who to thee</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Was as light kindling all a windy sea.</i><br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="BIRTHDAY_ODE" id="BIRTHDAY_ODE"></a>BIRTHDAY ODE</h2> + +<h3>FOR THE ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL OF VICTOR HUGO,<br /> +FEBRUARY 26, 1880</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Strophe</i> 1.</span><span class="i1">Spring, born in heaven ere many a springtime flown,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Dead spring that sawest on earth<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A babe of deathless birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A flower of rosier flowerage than thine own,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A glory of goodlier godhead; even this day,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That floods the mist of February with May,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And strikes death dead with sunlight, and the breath<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whereby the deadly doers are done to death,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">They that in day's despite<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">10</span><span class="i1">Would crown the imperial night,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And in deep hate of insubmissive spring<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rethrone the royal winter for a king,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">This day that casts the days of darkness down<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Low as a broken crown,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">We call thee from the gulf of deeds and days,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Deathless and dead, to hear us whom we praise.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Antistrophe</i> 1.</span><span class="i1">A light of many lights about thine head,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Lights manifold and one,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Stars molten in a sun,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">20</span><span class="i1">A sun of divers beams incorporated,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> +<span class="i1">Compact of confluent aureoles, each more fair<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Than man, save only at highest of man, may wear,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">So didst thou rise, when this our grey-grown age<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Had trod two paces of his pilgrimage,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Two paces through the gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From his fierce father's tomb,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Led by cross lights of lightnings, and the flame<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That burned in darkness round one darkling name;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">So didst thou rise, nor knewest thy glory, O thou<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">30</span><span class="i1">Re-risen upon us now,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The glory given thee for a grace to give,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And take the praise of all men's hearts that live.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Epode</i> 1.</span><span class="i4"><a name="v33" id="v33"></a>First in the dewy ray<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Ere dawn be slain of day<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The fresh crowned lilies of discrowned kings' prime<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Sprang splendid as of old<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With moonlight-coloured gold<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And rays refract from the oldworld heaven of time;<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">39</span><span class="i3">Pale with proud light of stars decreased<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In westward wane reluctant from the conquering east.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 2.</span><span class="i1">But even between their golden olden bloom<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Strange flowers of wildwood glory,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With frost and moonshine hoary,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Thrust up the new growths of their green-leaved gloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Red buds of ballad blossom, where the dew<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Blushed as with bloodlike passion, and its hue<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Was as the life and love of hearts on flame,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And fire from forth of each live chalice came:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Young sprays of elder song,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">50</span><span class="i1">Stem straight and petal strong,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> +<span class="i1">Bright foliage with dark frondage overlaid,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And light the lovelier for its lordlier shade;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And morn and even made loud in woodland lone<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With cheer of clarions blown,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And through the tournay's clash and clarion's cheer<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Laugh to laugh echoing, tear washed off by tear.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 2.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v57" id="v57"></a>Then eastward far past northland lea and lawn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beneath a heavier light<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of stormier day and night<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">60</span><span class="i1">Began the music of the heaven of dawn;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Bright sound of battle along the Grecian waves,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Loud light of thunder above the Median graves,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">New strife, new song on Æschylean seas,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Canaris risen above Themistocles;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Old glory of warrior ghosts<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Shed fresh on filial hosts,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With dewfall redder than the dews of day,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And earth-born lightnings out of bloodbright spray;<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v69" id="v69"></a>Then through the flushed grey gloom on shadowy sheaves<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">70</span><span class="i1">Low flights of falling leaves;<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v71" id="v71"></a>And choirs of birds transfiguring as they throng<br /></span> +<span class="i1">All the world's twilight and the soul's to song.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 2.</span><span class="i4"><a name="v73" id="v73"></a>Voices more dimly deep<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Than the inmost heart of sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And tenderer than the rose-mouthed morning's lips;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And midmost of them heard<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The viewless water's word,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sea's breath in the wind's wing and the ship's,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">79</span><span class="i3">That bids one swell and sound and smite<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And rend that other in sunder as with fangs by night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 3.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v81" id="v81"></a>But ah! the glory of shadow and mingling ray,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The story of morn and even<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whose tale was writ in heaven<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And had for scroll the night, for scribe the day!<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For scribe the prophet of the morning, far<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Exalted over twilight and her star;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For scroll beneath his Apollonian hand<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The dim twin wastes of sea and glimmering land.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hark, on the hill-wind, clear<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">90</span><span class="i1">For all men's hearts to hear<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sound like a stream at nightfall from the steep<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That all time's depths might answer, deep to deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With trumpet-measures of triumphal wail<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From windy vale to vale,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The crying of one for love that strayed and sinned<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whose brain took madness of the mountain wind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 3.</span><span class="i1">Between the birds of brighter and duskier wing,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">What mightier-moulded forms<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Girt with red clouds and storms<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">100</span><span class="i1">Mix their strong hearts with theirs that soar and sing?<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v101" id="v101"></a>Before the storm-blast blown of death's dark horn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The marriage moonlight withers, that the morn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For two made one may find three made by death<br /></span> +<span class="i1">One ruin at the blasting of its breath:<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v105" id="v105"></a>Clothed with heart's flame renewed<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And strange new maidenhood,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Faith lightens on the lips that bloomed for hire<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Pure as the lightning of love's first-born fire:<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v109" id="v109"></a>Wide-eyed and patient ever, till the curse<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">110</span><span class="i1">Find where to fall and pierce,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Keen expiation whets with edge more dread<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A father's wrong to smite a father's head.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 3.</span><span class="i4"><a name="v113" id="v113"></a>Borgia, supreme from birth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As loveliest born on earth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Since earth bore ever women that were fair;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Scarce known of her own house<br /></span> +<span class="i4">If daughter or sister or spouse;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who holds men's hearts yet helpless with her hair;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">The direst of divine things made,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">120</span><span class="i0">Bows down her amorous aureole half suffused with shade.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 4.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v121" id="v121"></a>As red the fire-scathed royal northland bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That left our story a name<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Dyed through with blood and flame<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ere her life shrivelled from a fierier doom<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Than theirs her priests bade pass from earth in fire<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To slake the thirst of God their Lord's desire:<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v127" id="v127"></a>As keen the blast of love-enkindled fate<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That burst the Paduan tyrant's guarded gate:<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v129" id="v129"></a>As sad the softer moan<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">130</span><span class="i1">Made one with music's own<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For one whose feet made music as they fell<br /></span> +<span class="i1">On ways by loveless love made hot from hell:<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v133" id="v133"></a>But higher than these and all the song thereof<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The perfect heart of love,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The heart by fraud and hate once crucified,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That, dying, gave thanks, and in thanksgiving died.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 4.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v137" id="v137"></a>Above the windy walls that rule the Rhine<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A noise of eagles' wings<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And wintry war-time rings,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">140</span><span class="i1">With roar of ravage trampling corn and vine<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And storm of wrathful wassail dashed with song,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And under these the watch of wreakless wrong,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> +<span class="i1">With fire of eyes anhungered; and above<br /></span> +<span class="i1">These, the light of the stricken eyes of love,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The faint sweet eyes that follow<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The wind-outwinging swallow,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And face athirst with young wan yearning mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Turned after toward the unseen all-golden south,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hopeless to see the birds back ere life wane,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">150</span><span class="i1">Or the leaves born again;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And still the might and music mastering fate<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of life more strong than death and love than hate.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 4.</span><span class="i4"><a name="v153" id="v153"></a>In spectral strength biform<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Stand the twin sons of storm<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Transfigured by transmission of one hand<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That gives the new-born time<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Their semblance more sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than once it lightened over each man's land;<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">159</span><span class="i3">There Freedom's winged and wide-mouthed hound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And here our high Dictator, in his son discrowned.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 5.</span><span class="i1">What strong-limbed shapes of kindred throng round these<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Before, between, behind,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sons born of one man's mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fed at his hands and fostered round his knees?<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fear takes the spirit in thraldom at his nod,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And pity makes it as the spirit of God,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As his own soul that from her throne above<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sheds on all souls of men her showers of love,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">On all earth's evil and pain<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">170</span><span class="i1">Pours mercy forth as rain<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And comfort as the dewfall on dry land;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And feeds with pity from a faultless hand<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> +<span class="i1">All by their own fault stricken, all cast out<br /></span> +<span class="i1">By all men's scorn or doubt,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Or with their own hands wounded, or by fate<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Brought into bondage of men's fear or hate.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 5.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v177" id="v177"></a>In violence of strange visions north and south<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Confronted, east and west,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With frozen or fiery breast,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">180</span><span class="i1">Eyes fixed or fevered, pale or bloodred mouth,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Kept watch about his dawn-enkindled dreams;<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v182" id="v182"></a>But ere high noon a light of nearer beams<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Made his young heaven of manhood more benign,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And love made soft his lips with spiritual wine,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And left them fired, and fed<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With sacramental bread,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And sweet with honey of tenderer words than tears<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To feed men's hopes and fortify men's fears,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And strong to silence with benignant breath<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">190</span><span class="i1">The lips that doom to death,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And swift with speech like fire in fiery lands<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To melt the steel's edge in the headsman's hands.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 5.</span><span class="i4"><a name="v193" id="v193"></a>Higher than they rose of old,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">New builded now, behold,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The live great likeness of Our Lady's towers;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And round them like a dove<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Wounded, and sick with love,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One fair ghost moving, crowned with fateful flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">199</span><span class="i3">Watched yet with eyes of bloodred lust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And eyes of love's heart broken and unbroken trust.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 6.</span><span class="i1">But sadder always under shadowier skies,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">More pale and sad and clear<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> +<span class="i1">Waxed always, drawn more near,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The face of Duty lit with Love's own eyes;<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v205" id="v205"></a>Till the awful hands that culled in rosier hours<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From fairy-footed fields of wild old flowers<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And sorcerous woods of Rhineland, green and hoary,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Young children's chaplets of enchanted story,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The great kind hands that showed<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">210</span><span class="i1">Exile its homeward road,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And, as man's helper made his foeman God,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of pity and mercy wrought themselves a rod,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And opened for Napoleon's wandering kin<br /></span> +<span class="i1">France, and bade enter in,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And threw for all the doors of refuge wide,<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v216" id="v216"></a>Took to them lightning in the thunder-tide.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 6.</span><span class="i1">For storm on earth above had risen from under,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Out of the hollow of hell,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Such storm as never fell<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From darkest deeps of heaven distract with thunder;<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">221</span><span class="i1">A cloud of cursing, past all shape of thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">More foul than foulest dreams, and overfraught<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With all obscene things and obscure of birth<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That ever made infection of man's earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Having all hell for cloak<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Wrapped round it as a smoke<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And in its womb such offspring so defiled<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As earth bare never for her loathliest child,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rose, brooded, reddened, broke, and with its breath<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">230<br /></span><span class="i1">Put France to poisonous death;</span> +<span class="i1">Yea, far as heaven's red labouring eye could glance,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">France was not, save in men cast forth of France.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 6.</span><span class="i4">Then,—while the plague-sore grew<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Two darkling decades through,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And rankled in the festering flesh of time,—<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> +<span class="i4">Where darkness binds and frees<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The wildest of wild seas<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In fierce mutations of the unslumbering clime,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">There, sleepless too, o'er shuddering wrong<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">240</span><span class="i0">One hand appointed shook the reddening scourge of song.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 7.</span><span class="i1">And through the lightnings of the apparent word<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Dividing shame's dense night<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sounds lovelier than the light<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And light more sweet than song from night's own bird<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Mixed each their hearts with other, till the gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Was glorious as with all the stars in bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sonorous as with all the spheres in chime<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Heard far through flowering heaven: the sea, sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Once only with its own<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">250</span><span class="i1">Old winds' and waters' tone,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sad only or glad with its own glory, and crowned<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With its own light, and thrilled with its own sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Learnt now their song, more sweet than heaven's may be,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Who pass away by sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The song that takes of old love's land farewell,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With pulse of plangent water like a knell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 7.</span><span class="i1">And louder ever and louder and yet more loud<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till night be shamed of morn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rings the Black Huntsman's horn<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">260</span><span class="i1">Through darkening deeps beneath the covering cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till all the wild beasts of the darkness hear;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> +<span class="i1">Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till spies and slayers on seats of judgment quail,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till mitre and cowl bow down<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And crumble as a crown,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till Cæsar driven to lair and hounded Pope<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Reel breathless and drop heartless out of hope,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And one the uncleanest kinless beast of all<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">270</span><span class="i1">Lower than his fortune fall;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The wolfish waif of casual empire, born<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To turn all hate and horror cold with scorn.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 7.</span><span class="i4">Yea, even at night's full noon<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Light's birth-song brake in tune,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Spake, witnessing that with us one must be,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">God; naming so by name<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That priests have brought to shame<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The strength whose scourge sounds on the smitten sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">The mystery manifold of might<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">280</span><span class="i0">Which bids the wind give back to night the things of night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 8.</span><span class="i1">Even God, the unknown of all time; force or thought,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Nature or fate or will,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Clothed round with good and ill,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Veiled and revealed of all things and of nought,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Hooded and helmed with mystery, girt and shod<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With light and darkness, unapparent God.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Him the high prophet o'er his wild work bent<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Found indivisible ever and immanent<br /></span> +<span class="i1">At hidden heart of truth,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">290</span><span class="i1">In forms of age and youth<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Transformed and transient ever; masked and crowned,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> +<span class="i1">From all bonds loosened and with all bonds bound,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Diverse and one with all things; love and hate,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Earth, and the starry state<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of heaven immeasurable, and years that flee<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As clouds and winds and rays across the sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 8.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v297" id="v297"></a>But higher than stars and deeper than the waves<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of day and night and morrow<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That roll for all time, sorrow<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">300</span><span class="i1">Keeps ageless watch over perpetual graves.<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From dawn to morning of the soul in flower,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Through toils and dreams and visions, to that hour<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When all the deeps were opened, and one doom<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Took two sweet lives to embrace them and entomb,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The strong song plies its wing<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That makes the darkness ring<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And the deep light reverberate sound as deep;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Song soft as flowers or grass more soft than sleep,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Song bright as heaven above the mounting bird,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">310</span><span class="i1">Song like a God's tears heard<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Falling, fulfilled of life and death and light,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And all the stars and all the shadow of night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 8.</span><span class="i4">Till, when its flight hath past<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Time's loftiest mark and last,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The goal where good kills evil with a kiss,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And Darkness in God's sight<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Grows as his brother Light,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And heaven and hell one heart whence all the abyss<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Throbs with love's music; from his trance<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">320</span><span class="i0">Love waking leads it home to her who stayed in France.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 9.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v321" id="v321"></a>But now from all the world-old winds of the air<br /></span> +<span class="i1">One blast of record rings<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As from time's hidden springs<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With roar of rushing wings and fires that bear<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Toward north and south sonorous, east and west,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Forth of the dark wherein its records rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The story told of the ages, writ nor sung<br /></span> +<span class="i1">By man's hand ever nor by mortal tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till, godlike with desire,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">330</span><span class="i1">One tongue of man took fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">One hand laid hold upon the lightning, one<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rose up to bear time witness what the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Had seen, and what the moon and stars of night<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beholding lost not light:<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From dawn to dusk what ways man wandering trod<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Even through the twilight of the gods to God.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 9.</span><span class="i1">From dawn of man and woman twain and one<br /></span> +<span class="i1">When the earliest dews impearled<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The front of all the world<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">340</span><span class="i1">Ringed with aurorean aureole of the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To days that saw Christ's tears and hallowing breath<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Put life for love's sake in the lips of death,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And years as waves whose brine was fire, whose foam<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Blood, and the ravage of Neronian Rome;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And the eastern crescent's horn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Mightier awhile than morn;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And knights whose lives were flights of eagles' wings,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And lives like snakes' lives of engendering kings;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And all the ravin of all the swords that reap<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">350</span><span class="i1">Lives cast as sheaves on heap<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From all the billowing harvest-fields of fight;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And sounds of love-songs lovelier than the light.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 9.</span><span class="i4">The grim dim thrones of the east<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Set for death's riotous feast<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Round the bright board where darkling centuries wait,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And servile slaughter, mute,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Feeds power with fresh red fruit,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Glitter and groan with mortal food of fate;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">And throne and cup and lamp's bright breath<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">360</span><span class="i0">Bear witness to their lord of only night and death.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 10.</span><span class="i1">Dead freedom by live empire lies defiled,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And murder at his feet<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Plies lust with wine and meat,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With offering of an old man and a child,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With holy body and blood, inexpiable<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Communion in the sacrament of hell,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Till, reeking from their monstrous eucharist,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The lips wax cold that murdered where they kissed,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And empire in mid feast<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">370</span><span class="i1">Fall as a slaughtered beast<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Headless, and ease men's hungering hearts of fear<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Lest God were none in heaven, to see nor hear,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And purge his own pollution with the flood<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Poured of his black base blood<br /></span> +<span class="i1">So first found healing, poisonous as it poured;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And on the clouds the archangel cleanse his sword.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 10.</span><span class="i1">As at the word unutterable that made<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of day and night division,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">379</span><span class="i1">From vision on to vision,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From dream to dream, from darkness into shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">From sunshine into sunlight, moves and lives<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The steersman's eye, the helming hand that gives<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> +<span class="i1">Life to the wheels and wings that whirl along<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The immeasurable impulse of the sphere of song<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Through all the eternal years,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beyond all stars and spheres,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beyond the washing of the waves of time,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beyond all heights where no thought else may climb,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beyond the darkling dust of suns that were,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">390</span><span class="i1">Past height and depth of air;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And in the abyss whence all things move that are<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v392" id="v392"></a>Finds only living Love, the sovereign star.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 10.</span><span class="i4">Nor less the weight and worth<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Found even of love on earth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To wash all stain of tears and sins away,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">On dying lips alit<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That living knew not it,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the winged shape of song with death to play:<br /></span> +<span class="i3">To warm young children with its wings,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">400</span><span class="i0">And try with fire the heart elect for godlike things.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 11.</span><span class="i1">For all worst wants of all most miserable<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With divine hands to deal<br /></span> +<span class="i1">All balms and herbs that heal,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Among all woes whereunder poor men dwell<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Our Master sent his servant Love, to be<br /></span> +<span class="i1">On earth his witness; but the strange deep sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Mother of life and death inextricate,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">What work should Love do there, to war with fate?<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v409" id="v409"></a>Yet there must Love too keep<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">410</span><span class="i1">At heart of the eyeless deep<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Watch, and wage war wide-eyed with all its wonders,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Lower than the lightnings of its waves, and thunders<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +<span class="i1">Of seas less monstrous than the births they bred;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Keep high there heart and head,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And conquer: then for prize of all toils past<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Feel the sea close them in again at last.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 11.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v417" id="v417"></a>A day of direr doom arisen thereafter<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With cloud and fire in strife<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Lightens and darkens life<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">420</span><span class="i1">Round one by man's hand masked with living laughter,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">A man by men bemonstered, but by love,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Watched with blind eyes as of a wakeful dove,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And wooed by lust, that in her rosy den<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As fire on flesh feeds on the souls of men,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To take the intense impure<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Burnt-offering of her lure,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Divine and dark and bright and naked, strange<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With ravenous thirst of life reversed and change,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">As though the very heaven should shrivel and swell<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">430</span><span class="i1">With hunger after hell,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Run mad for dear damnation, and desire<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To feel its light thrilled through with stings of fire.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 11.</span><span class="i4"><a name="v433" id="v433"></a>Above a windier sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The glory of Ninety-three<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Fills heaven with blood-red and with rose-red beams<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That earth beholding grows<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Herself one burning rose<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flagrant and fragrant with strange deeds and dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i3">Dreams dyed as love's own flower, and deeds<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">440</span><span class="i0">Stained as with love's own life-blood, that for love's sake bleeds.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 12.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v441" id="v441"></a>And deeper than all deeps of seas and skies<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Wherein the shadows are<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Called sun and moon and star<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That rapt conjecture metes with mounting eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Loud with strange waves and lustrous with new spheres,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Shines, masked at once and manifest of years,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Shakespeare, a heaven of heavenly eyes beholden;<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v448" id="v448"></a>And forward years as backward years grow golden<br /></span> +<span class="i1">With light of deeds and words<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">450</span><span class="i1">And flight of God's fleet birds,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Angels of wrath and love and truth and pity;<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v452" id="v452"></a>And higher on exiled eyes their natural city<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Dawns down the depths of vision, more sublime<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Than all truths born of time;<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v455" id="v455"></a>And eyes that wept above two dear sons dead<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v456" id="v456"></a>Grow saving stars to guard one hopeless head.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 12.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v457" id="v457"></a>Bright round the brows of banished age had shone<br /></span> +<span class="i1">In vision flushed with truth<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">459</span><span class="i1">The rosy glory of youth<br /></span> +<span class="i1">On streets and woodlands where in days long gone<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sweet love sang light and loud and deep and dear:<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v462" id="v462"></a>And far the trumpets of the dreadful year<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Had pealed and wailed in darkness: last arose<br /></span> +<span class="i1"><a name="v464" id="v464"></a>The song of children, kindling as a rose<br /></span> +<span class="i1">At breath of sunrise, born<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of the red flower of morn<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Whose face perfumes deep heaven with odorous light<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And thrills all through the wings of souls in flight<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Close as the press of children at His knee<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">470</span><span class="i1"><a name="v470" id="v470"></a>Whom if the high priest see,<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +<span class="i1">Dreaming, as homeless on dark earth he trod,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The lips that praise him shall not know for God.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 12.</span><span class="i4">O sovereign spirit, above<br /></span> +<span class="i4">All offering but man's love,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All praise and prayer and incense undefiled!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The one thing stronger found<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Than towers with iron bound;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The one thing lovelier than a little child,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">479</span><span class="i3">And deeper than the seas are deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tenderer than such tears of love as angels weep.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Str.</i> 13.</span><span class="i1">Dante, the seer of all things evil and good,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Beheld two ladies, Beauty<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And high life-hallowing Duty,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That strove for sway upon his mind and mood<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And held him in alternating accord<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Fast bound at feet of either: but our lord,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The seer and singer of righteousness and wrong<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Who stands now master of all the keys of song,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Sees both as dewdrops run<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">490</span><span class="i1">Together in the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For him not twain but one thing twice divine;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Even as his speech and song are bread and wine<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For all souls hungering and all hearts athirst<br /></span> +<span class="i1">At best of days and worst,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">And both one sacrament of Love's great giving<br /></span> +<span class="i1">To feed the spirit and sense of all souls living.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ant.</i> 13.</span><span class="i1"><a name="v497" id="v497"></a>The seventh day in the wind's month, ten years gone<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Since heaven-espousing earth<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Gave the Republic birth,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">500</span><span class="i1">The mightiest soul put mortal raiment on<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +<span class="i1">That came forth singing ever in man's ears<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Of all souls with us, and through all these years<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Rings yet the lordliest, waxen yet more strong,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That on our souls hath shed itself in song,<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Poured forth itself like rain<br /></span> +<span class="i1">On souls like springing grain<br /></span> +<span class="i1">That with its procreant beams and showers were fed<br /></span> +<span class="i1">For living wine and sacramental bread;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Given all itself as air gives life and light,<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">510</span><span class="i1">Utterly, as of right;<br /></span> +<span class="i1">The goodliest gift our age hath given, to be<br /></span> +<span class="i1">Ours, while the sun gives glory to the sea.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="linenum">[<i>Ep.</i> 13.</span><span class="i4">Our Father and Master and Lord,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Who hast thy song for sword,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For staff thy spirit, and our hearts for throne:<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As in past years of wrong,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Take now my subject song,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To no crowned head made humble but thine own;<br /></span> +<span class="i3">That on thy day of worldly birth<br /></span> +<span class="linenum">520</span><span class="i0">Gives thanks for all thou hast given past thanks of all on earth.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="NOTES" id="NOTES"></a>NOTES</h2> + + +<p> +<i>v.</i> <a name="n33" id="n33"></a><a href="#v33">33</a>. <i>Odes et Ballades</i>, 1822-1824.<br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a name="n57" id="n57"></a><a href="#v57">57</a>. <i>Les Orientales</i>, 1829.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a name="n69" id="n69"></a><a href="#v69">69</a>. <i>Les Feuilles d'Automne</i>, 1831.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a name="n71" id="n71"></a><a href="#v71">71</a>. <i>Les Chants du Crépuscule</i>, 1835.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a name="n73" id="n73"></a><a href="#v73">73</a>. <i>Les Voix Intérieures</i>, 1837.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><a name="n81" id="n81"></a><a href="#v81">81</a>. <i>Les Rayons et les Ombres</i>, 1840.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n101" id="n101"></a><a href="#v101">101</a>. <i>Hernani</i>, 1830.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n105" id="n105"></a><a href="#v105">105</a>. <i>Marion de Lorme</i>, 1831.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n109" id="n109"></a><a href="#v109">109</a>. <i>Le Roi s'amuse</i>, 1832.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n113" id="n113"></a><a href="#v113">113</a>. <i>Lucrèce Borgia</i>, 1833.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n121" id="n121"></a><a href="#v121">121</a>. <i>Marie Tudor</i>, 1835.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n127" id="n127"></a><a href="#v127">127</a>. <i>Angelo, Tyran de Padoue</i>, 1835.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n129" id="n129"></a><a href="#v129">129</a>. <i>La Esmeralda</i>, 1836.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n133" id="n133"></a><a href="#v133">133</a>. <i>Ruy Blas</i>, 1838.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n137" id="n137"></a><a href="#v137">137</a>. <i>Les Burgraves</i>, 1842.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n153" id="n153"></a><a href="#v153">153</a>. <i>Cromwell</i>, 1827: <i>Étude sur Mirabeau</i>, 1834</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">(<i>Littérature et Philosophie mêlées</i>, 1819-1834).</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n177" id="n177"></a><a href="#v177">177</a>. <i>Han d'Islande</i>, 1823. <i>Bug-Jargal</i>, 1826.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n182" id="n182"></a><a href="#v182">182</a>. <i>Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné</i>, 1829:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Claude Gueux</i>, 1834.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n193" id="n193"></a><a href="#v193">193</a>. <i>Notre-Dame de Paris</i>, 1831.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n205" id="n205"></a><a href="#v205">205</a>. <i>Le Rhin</i>, 1845.</span><br /> +<br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n216" id="n216"></a><a href="#v216">216</a>.</span></p> +<div class="blockquot"><i>Napoléon le Petit</i>, 1852. <i>Châtiments</i>, 1853. +<i>Histoire d'un Crime</i>, 1877. In this place I must take +occasion to relieve my conscience from a sense of duty +unfulfilled so long as I for one have not uttered my own poor +private protest—worthless and weightless though it may seem, +if cast as a grain into the scale of public opinion—against +a projected insult at once to contemporary France and to the +present only less than to past generations of Englishmen. +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>On the proposed desecration of Westminster Abbey</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;"><i>by the erection of a monument to</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 9.5em;"><i>the son of Napoleon III</i></span><br /> +</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">"Let us go hence." From the inmost shrine of grace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">Where England holds the elect of all her dead</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">There comes a word like one of old time said</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">By gods of old cast out. Here is no place</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">At once for these and one of poisonous race.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">Let each rise up from his dishallowed bed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">And pass forth silent. Each divine veiled head</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Shall speak in silence with averted face.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">"Scorn everlasting and eternal shame</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Eat out the rotting record of his name</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Who had the glory of all these graves in trust</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">And turned it to a hissing. His offence</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5.5em;">Makes havoc of their desecrated dust</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">Whose place is here no more. Let us go hence."</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 19em;">Feb. 25, 1880.</span><br /></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n297" id="n297"></a><a href="#v297">297</a>. <i>Les Contemplations</i>, 1856.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n321" id="n321"></a><a href="#v321">321</a>. <i>La Légende des Siècles</i>. <i>Première série</i>, 1859;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"> <i>nouvelle série</i>, 1877.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n392" id="n392"></a><a href="#v392">392</a>. <i>Les Misérables</i>, 1862.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n409" id="n409"></a><a href="#v409">409</a>. <i>Les Travailleurs de la Mer</i>, 1866.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n417" id="n417"></a><a href="#v417">417</a>. <i>L'Homme qui Rit</i>, 1869.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n433" id="n433"></a><a href="#v433">433</a>. <i>Quatre-vingt-treize</i>, 1874.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n441" id="n441"></a><a href="#v441">441</a>. <i>William Shakespeare</i>, 1864.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n448" id="n448"></a><a href="#v448">448</a>. <i>Actes et Paroles</i>; <i>Avant l'Exil</i>, 1841-1851;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Pendant l'Exil</i>, 1852-1870; <i>Depuis l'Exil</i>, 1870-1876.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n452" id="n452"></a><a href="#v452">452</a>. <i>Paris</i>, 1867.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n455" id="n455"></a><a href="#v455">455</a>. <i>Mes Fils</i>, 1875.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n456" id="n456"></a><a href="#v456">456</a>. <i>Pour un Soldat</i>, 1875.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n457" id="n457"></a><a href="#v457">457</a>. <i>Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois</i>, 1865.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n462" id="n462"></a><a href="#v462">462</a>. <i>L'Année Terrible</i>, 1872.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n464" id="n464"></a><a href="#v464">464</a>. <i>L'Art d'être Grandpère</i>, 1877.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n470" id="n470"></a><a href="#v470">470</a>. <i>Le Pape</i>, 1878.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;"><a name="n497" id="n497"></a><a href="#v497">497</a>. "Septidi ventôse an X de la République (26 février 1802)."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Victor Hugo raconté par un témoin de sa vie</i>, 1863,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>tome</i> 1, p. 28.</span><br /> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot">At the end of such a list, so incomparable as to seem +incredible, of one great man's good works, we may be +forgiven the alteration of a word even in a verse from +Æschylus which we cannot choose but apply once more to +this leader in the advance of men made perfect through +doom of trial and long wayfaring, whose progress he +furthers by example and stimulates by song:— +<br /></div> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>κυριος εστι θροειν οδιον κρατος αισιον ανδρων</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>εκτελεων ετι γαρ θεοθεν καταπνειει</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>πειθω μολπαν</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>αλκα συμφυτος αιων</i>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 12em;">Æsch. <i>Agam.</i> 104-8.</span><br /> +</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h4>Transcriber's Notes</h4> + +<p>The Greek text has been changed from the original book in order to +be viewed along with the Latin-1 text by many different browsers. Below +are images of the Greek text from the original book.</p> + +<p class="center">Page <a href="#Page_311">311</a>:</p> +<p class="figcenter" style="width: 255px;"> +<img src="images/image001.png" width="255" height="38" alt="" title="" /> +</p> +<p class="center">Page <a href="#n497">361</a>:</p> +<p class="figcenter" style="width: 559px;"> +<img src="images/image002.png" width="559" height="144" alt="" title="" /> +</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Springtides and Birthday +Ode, by Algernon Charles Swinburne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES *** + +***** This file should be named 18287-h.htm or 18287-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/8/18287/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Diane Monico, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode + Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles + Swinburne--Vol. III + +Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne + +Release Date: April 30, 2006 [EBook #18287] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES *** + + + + +Produced by Paul Murray, Diane Monico, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net. + + + + + + + + + +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES + +BIRTHDAY ODE + +Taken from +THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS +OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE, +VOL. III + +By + +Algernon Charles Swinburne + + + + +SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS + +I. POEMS AND BALLADS (First Series). + +II. SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE, AND SONGS OF TWO NATIONS. + +III. POEMS AND BALLADS (Second and Third + Series), and SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES. + +IV. TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE, THE TALE OF BALEN, + ATALANTA IN CALYDON, ERECHTHEUS. + +V. STUDIES IN SONG, A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS, SONNETS + ON ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS, THE HEPTALOGIA, ETC. + +VI. A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY, ASTROPHEL, A CHANNEL PASSAGE + AND OTHER POEMS. + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + + + +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES + +BIRTHDAY ODE + +By + +Algernon Charles Swinburne + +1917 + +LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + + + +_First printed (Chatto), 1904_ + +_Reprinted 1904, '09, '10, '12_ + +_(Heinemann), 1917_ + +_London: William Heinemann, 1917_ + + + + +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES + + +TO EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNY 293 + +THALASSIUS 295 + +ON THE CLIFFS 311 + +THE GARDEN OF CYMODOCE 326 + +BIRTHDAY ODE 341 + +NOTES 359 + + + + +SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES + + + + +DEDICATION + +TO EDWARD JOHN TRELAWNY + + +_A sea-mew on a sea-king's wrist alighting, + As the north sea-wind caught and strained and curled +The raven-figured flag that led men fighting + From field to green field of the water-world, +Might find such brief high favour at his hand + For wings imbrued with brine, with foam impearled, +As these my songs require at yours on land, + That durst not save for love's free sake require, +Being lightly born between the foam and sand, + But reared by hope and memory and desire +Of lives that were and life that is to be, + Even such as filled his heavenlier song with fire +Whose very voice, that sang to set man free, + Was in your ears as ever in ours his lyre, +Once, ere the flame received him from the sea._ + + + + +THALASSIUS + + +Upon the flowery forefront of the year, +One wandering by the grey-green April sea +Found on a reach of shingle and shallower sand +Inlaid with starrier glimmering jewellery +Left for the sun's love and the light wind's cheer +Along the foam-flowered strand +Breeze-brightened, something nearer sea than land +Though the last shoreward blossom-fringe was near, +A babe asleep with flower-soft face that gleamed +To sun and seaward as it laughed and dreamed, +Too sure of either love for either's fear, +Albeit so birdlike slight and light, it seemed +Nor man nor mortal child of man, but fair +As even its twin-born tenderer spray-flowers were, +That the wind scatters like an Oread's hair. + + For when July strewed fire on earth and sea +The last time ere that year, +Out of the flame of morn Cymothoe +Beheld one brighter than the sunbright sphere +Move toward her from its fieriest heart, whence trod +The live sun's very God, +Across the foam-bright water-ways that are +As heavenlier heavens with star for answering star, +And on her eyes and hair and maiden mouth +Felt a kiss falling fierier than the South +And heard above afar +A noise of songs and wind-enamoured wings +And lutes and lyres of milder and mightier strings, +And round the resonant radiance of his car +Where depth is one with height, +Light heard as music, music seen as light. +And with that second moondawn of the spring's +That fosters the first rose, +A sun-child whiter than the sunlit snows +Was born out of the world of sunless things +That round the round earth flows and ebbs and flows. + + But he that found the sea-flower by the sea +And took to foster like a graft of earth +Was born of man's most highest and heavenliest birth, +Free-born as winds and stars and waves are free; +A warrior grey with glories more than years, +Though more of years than change the quick to dead +Had rained their light and darkness on his head; +A singer that in time's and memory's ears +Should leave such words to sing as all his peers +Might praise with hallowing heat of rapturous tears +Till all the days of human flight were fled. +And at his knees his fosterling was fed +Not with man's wine and bread +Nor mortal mother-milk of hopes and fears, +But food of deep memorial days long sped; +For bread with wisdom and with song for wine +Clear as the full calm's emerald hyaline. +And from his grave glad lips the boy would gather +Fine honey of song-notes goldener than gold, +More sweet than bees make of the breathing heather, +That he, as glad and bold, +Might drink as they, and keep his spirit from cold. +And the boy loved his laurel-laden hair +As his own father's risen on the eastern air, +And that less white brow-binding bayleaf bloom +More than all flowers his father's eyes relume; +And those high songs he heard, +More than all notes of any landward bird, +More than all sounds less free +Than the wind's quiring to the choral sea. + + High things the high song taught him; how the breath +Too frail for life may be more strong than death; +And this poor flash of sense in life, that gleams +As a ghost's glory in dreams, +More stabile than the world's own heart's root seems, +By that strong faith of lordliest love which gives +To death's own sightless-seeming eyes a light +Clearer, to death's bare bones a verier might, +Than shines or strikes from any man that lives. +How he that loves life overmuch shall die +The dog's death, utterly: +And he that much less loves it than he hates +All wrongdoing that is done +Anywhere always underneath the sun +Shall live a mightier life than time's or fate's. +One fairer thing he shewed him, and in might +More strong than day and night +Whose strengths build up time's towering period: +Yea, one thing stronger and more high than God, +Which if man had not, then should God not be: +And that was Liberty. +And gladly should man die to gain, he said, +Freedom; and gladlier, having lost, lie dead. +For man's earth was not, nor the sweet sea-waves +His, nor his own land, nor its very graves, +Except they bred not, bore not, hid not slaves: +But all of all that is, +Were one man free in body and soul, were his. + + And the song softened, even as heaven by night +Softens, from sunnier down to starrier light, +And with its moonbright breath +Blessed life for death's sake, and for life's sake death. +Till as the moon's own beam and breath confuse +In one clear hueless haze of glimmering hues +The sea's line and the land's line and the sky's, +And light for love of darkness almost dies, +As darkness only lives for light's dear love, +Whose hands the web of night is woven of, +So in that heaven of wondrous words were life +And death brought out of strife; +Yea, by that strong spell of serene increase +Brought out of strife to peace. + + And the song lightened, as the wind at morn +Flashes, and even with lightning of the wind +Night's thick-spun web is thinned +And all its weft unwoven and overworn +Shrinks, as might love from scorn. +And as when wind and light on water and land +Leap as twin gods from heavenward hand in hand, +And with the sound and splendour of their leap +Strike darkness dead, and daunt the spirit of sleep, +And burn it up with fire; +So with the light that lightened from the lyre +Was all the bright heat in the child's heart stirred +And blown with blasts of music into flame +Till even his sense became +Fire, as the sense that fires the singing bird +Whose song calls night by name. +And in the soul within the sense began +The manlike passion of a godlike man, +And in the sense within the soul again +Thoughts that make men of gods and gods of men. + + For love the high song taught him: love that turns +God's heart toward man as man's to Godward; love +That life and death and life are fashioned of, +From the first breath that burns +Half kindled on the flowerlike yeanling's lip, +So light and faint that life seems like to slip, +To that yet weaklier drawn +When sunset dies of night's devouring dawn. +But the man dying not wholly as all men dies +If aught be left of his in live men's eyes +Out of the dawnless dark of death to rise; +If aught of deed or word +Be seen for all time or of all time heard. +Love, that though body and soul were overthrown +Should live for love's sake of itself alone, +Though spirit and flesh were one thing doomed and dead, +Not wholly annihilated. +Seeing even the hoariest ash-flake that the pyre +Drops, and forgets the thing was once afire +And gave its heart to feed the pile's full flame +Till its own heart its own heat overcame, +Outlives its own life, though by scarce a span, +As such men dying outlive themselves in man, +Outlive themselves for ever; if the heat +Outburn the heart that kindled it, the sweet +Outlast the flower whose soul it was, and flit +Forth of the body of it +Into some new shape of a strange perfume +More potent than its light live spirit of bloom, +How shall not something of that soul relive, +That only soul that had such gifts to give +As lighten something even of all men's doom +Even from the labouring womb +Even to the seal set on the unopening tomb? +And these the loving light of song and love +Shall wrap and lap round and impend above, +Imperishable; and all springs born illume +Their sleep with brighter thoughts than wake the dove +To music, when the hillside winds resume +The marriage-song of heather-flower and broom +And all the joy thereof. + + And hate the song too taught him: hate of all +That brings or holds in thrall +Of spirit or flesh, free-born ere God began, +The holy body and sacred soul of man. +And wheresoever a curse was or a chain, +A throne for torment or a crown for bane +Rose, moulded out of poor men's molten pain, +There, said he, should man's heaviest hate be set +Inexorably, to faint not or forget +Till the last warmth bled forth of the last vein +In flesh that none should call a king's again, +Seeing wolves and dogs and birds that plague-strike air +Leave the last bone of all the carrion bare. + + And hope the high song taught him: hope whose eyes +Can sound the seas unsoundable, the skies +Inaccessible of eyesight; that can see +What earth beholds not, hear what wind and sea +Hear not, and speak what all these crying in one +Can speak not to the sun. +For in her sovereign eyelight all things are +Clear as the closest seen and kindlier star +That marries morn and even and winter and spring +With one love's golden ring. +For she can see the days of man, the birth +Of good and death of evil things on earth +Inevitable and infinite, and sure +As present pain is, or herself is pure. +Yea, she can hear and see, beyond all things +That lighten from before Time's thunderous wings +Through the awful circle of wheel-winged periods, +The tempest of the twilight of all Gods: +And higher than all the circling course they ran +The sundawn of the spirit that was man. + + And fear the song too taught him; fear to be +Worthless the dear love of the wind and sea +That bred him fearless, like a sea-mew reared +In rocks of man's foot feared, +Where nought of wingless life may sing or shine. +Fear to wax worthless of that heaven he had +When all the life in all his limbs was glad +And all the drops in all his veins were wine +And all the pulses music; when his heart, +Singing, bade heaven and wind and sea bear part +In one live song's reiterance, and they bore: +Fear to go crownless of the flower he wore +When the winds loved him and the waters knew, +The blithest life that clove their blithe life through +With living limbs exultant, or held strife +More amorous than all dalliance aye anew +With the bright breath and strength of their large life, +With all strong wrath of all sheer winds that blew, +All glories of all storms of the air that fell +Prone, ineluctable, +With roar from heaven of revel, and with hue +As of a heaven turned hell. +For when the red blast of their breath had made +All heaven aflush with light more dire than shade, +He felt it in his blood and eyes and hair +Burn as if all the fires of the earth and air +Had laid strong hold upon his flesh, and stung +The soul behind it as with serpent's tongue, +Forked like the loveliest lightnings: nor could bear +But hardly, half distraught with strong delight, +The joy that like a garment wrapped him round +And lapped him over and under +With raiment of great light +And rapture of great sound +At every loud leap earthward of the thunder +From heaven's most furthest bound: +So seemed all heaven in hearing and in sight, +Alive and mad with glory and angry joy, +That something of its marvellous mirth and might +Moved even to madness, fledged as even for flight, +The blood and spirit of one but mortal boy. + + So, clothed with love and fear that love makes great, +And armed with hope and hate, +He set first foot upon the spring-flowered ways +That all feet pass and praise. +And one dim dawn between the winter and spring, +In the sharp harsh wind harrying heaven and earth +To put back April that had borne his birth +From sunward on her sunniest shower-struck wing, +With tears and laughter for the dew-dropt thing, +Slight as indeed a dew-drop, by the sea +One met him lovelier than all men may be, +God-featured, with god's eyes; and in their might +Somewhat that drew men's own to mar their sight, +Even of all eyes drawn toward him: and his mouth +Was as the very rose of all men's youth, +One rose of all the rose-beds in the world: +But round his brows the curls were snakes that curled, +And like his tongue a serpent's; and his voice +Speaks death, and bids rejoice. +Yet then he spake no word, seeming as dumb, +A dumb thing mild and hurtless; nor at first +From his bowed eyes seemed any light to come, +Nor his meek lips for blood or tears to thirst: +But as one blind and mute in mild sweet wise +Pleading for pity of piteous lips and eyes, +He strayed with faint bare lily-lovely feet +Helpless, and flowerlike sweet: +Nor might man see, not having word hereof, +That this of all gods was the great god Love. + + And seeing him lovely and like a little child +That wellnigh wept for wonder that it smiled +And was so feeble and fearful, with soft speech +The youth bespake him softly; but there fell +From the sweet lips no sweet word audible +That ear or thought might reach: +No sound to make the dim cold silence glad, +No breath to thaw the hard harsh air with heat; +Only the saddest smile of all things sweet, +Only the sweetest smile of all things sad. + + And so they went together one green way +Till April dying made free the world for May; +And on his guide suddenly Love's face turned, +And in his blind eyes burned +Hard light and heat of laughter; and like flame +That opens in a mountain's ravening mouth +To blear and sear the sunlight from the south, +His mute mouth opened, and his first word came: +'Knowest thou me now by name?' +And all his stature waxed immeasurable, +As of one shadowing heaven and lightening hell; +And statelier stood he than a tower that stands +And darkens with its darkness far-off sands +Whereon the sky leans red; +And with a voice that stilled the winds he said: +'I am he that was thy lord before thy birth, +I am he that is thy lord till thou turn earth: +I make the night more dark, and all the morrow +Dark as the night whose darkness was my breath: +O fool, my name is sorrow; +Thou fool, my name is death.' + + And he that heard spake not, and looked right on +Again, and Love was gone. + + Through many a night toward many a wearier day +His spirit bore his body down its way. +Through many a day toward many a wearier night +His soul sustained his sorrows in her sight. +And earth was bitter, and heaven, and even the sea +Sorrowful even as he. +And the wind helped not, and the sun was dumb; +And with too long strong stress of grief to be +His heart grew sere and numb. + + And one bright eve ere summer in autumn sank +At stardawn standing on a grey sea-bank +He felt the wind fitfully shift and heave +As toward a stormier eve; +And all the wan wide sea shuddered; and earth +Shook underfoot as toward some timeless birth, +Intolerable and inevitable; and all +Heaven, darkling, trembled like a stricken thrall. +And far out of the quivering east, and far +From past the moonrise and its guiding star, +Began a noise of tempest and a light +That was not of the lightning; and a sound +Rang with it round and round +That was not of the thunder; and a flight +As of blown clouds by night, +That was not of them; and with songs and cries +That sang and shrieked their soul out at the skies +A shapeless earthly storm of shapes began +From all ways round to move in on the man, +Clamorous against him silent; and their feet +Were as the wind's are fleet, +And their shrill songs were as wild birds' are sweet. + + And as when all the world of earth was wronged +And all the host of all men driven afoam +By the red hand of Rome, +Round some fierce amphitheatre overthronged +With fair clear faces full of bloodier lust +Than swells and stings the tiger when his mood +Is fieriest after blood +And drunk with trampling of the murderous must +That soaks and stains the tortuous close-coiled wood +Made monstrous with its myriad-mustering brood, +Face by fair face panted and gleamed and pressed, +And breast by passionate breast +Heaved hot with ravenous rapture, as they quaffed +The red ripe full fume of the deep live draught, +The sharp quick reek of keen fresh bloodshed, blown +Through the dense deep drift up to the emperor's throne +From the under steaming sands +With clamour of all-applausive throats and hands, +Mingling in mirthful time +With shrill blithe mockeries of the lithe-limbed mime: +So from somewhence far forth of the unbeholden, +Dreadfully driven from over and after and under, +Fierce, blown through fifes of brazen blast and golden, +With sound of chiming waves that drown the thunder +Or thunder that strikes dumb the sea's own chimes, +Began the bellowing of the bull-voiced mimes, +Terrible; firs bowed down as briars or palms +Even at the breathless blast as of a breeze +Fulfilled with clamour and clangour and storms of psalms; +Red hands rent up the roots of old-world trees, +Thick flames of torches tossed as tumbling seas +Made mad the moonless and infuriate air +That, ravening, revelled in the riotous hair +And raiment of the furred Bassarides. + + So came all those in on him; and his heart, +As out of sleep suddenly struck astart, +Danced, and his flesh took fire of theirs, and grief +Was as a last year's leaf +Blown dead far down the wind's way; and he set +His pale mouth to the brightest mouth it met +That laughed for love against his lips, and bade +Follow; and in following all his blood grew glad +And as again a sea-bird's; for the wind +Took him to bathe him deep round breast and brow +Not as it takes a dead leaf drained and thinned, +But as the brightest bay-flower blown on bough, +Set springing toward it singing: and they rode +By many a vine-leafed, many a rose-hung road, +Exalt with exultation; many a night +Set all its stars upon them as for spies +On many a moon-bewildering mountain-height +Where he rode only by the fierier light +Of his dread lady's hot sweet hungering eyes. +For the moon wandered witless of her way, +Spell-stricken by strong magic in such wise +As wizards use to set the stars astray. +And in his ears the music that makes mad +Beat always; and what way the music bade, +That alway rode he; nor was any sleep +His, nor from height nor deep. +But heaven was as red iron, slumberless, +And had no heart to bless; +And earth lay sere and darkling as distraught, +And help in her was nought. + + Then many a midnight, many a morn and even, +His mother, passing forth of her fair heaven, +With goodlier gifts than all save gods can give +From earth or from the heaven where sea-things live, +With shine of sea-flowers through the bay-leaf braid +Woven for a crown her foam-white hands had made +To crown him with land's laurel and sea-dew, +Sought the sea-bird that was her boy: but he +Sat panther-throned beside Erigone, +Riding the red ways of the revel through +Midmost of pale-mouthed passion's crownless crew. +Till on some winter's dawn of some dim year +He let the vine-bit on the panther's lip +Slide, and the green rein slip, +And set his eyes to seaward, nor gave ear +If sound from landward hailed him, dire or dear; +And passing forth of all those fair fierce ranks +Back to the grey sea-banks, +Against a sea-rock lying, aslant the steep, +Fell after many sleepless dreams on sleep. + + And in his sleep the dun green light was shed +Heavily round his head +That through the veil of sea falls fathom-deep, +Blurred like a lamp's that when the night drops dead +Dies; and his eyes gat grace of sleep to see +The deep divine dark dayshine of the sea, +Dense water-walls and clear dusk water-ways, +Broad-based, or branching as a sea-flower sprays +That side or this dividing; and anew +The glory of all her glories that he knew. +And in sharp rapture of recovering tears +He woke on fire with yearnings of old years, +Pure as one purged of pain that passion bore, +Ill child of bitter mother; for his own +Looked laughing toward him from her midsea throne, +Up toward him there ashore. + + Thence in his heart the great same joy began, +Of child that made him man: +And turned again from all hearts else on quest, +He communed with his own heart, and had rest. +And like sea-winds upon loud waters ran +His days and dreams together, till the joy +Burned in him of the boy. +Till the earth's great comfort and the sweet sea's breath +Breathed and blew life in where was heartless death, +Death spirit-stricken of soul-sick days, where strife +Of thought and flesh made mock of death and life. +And grace returned upon him of his birth +Where heaven was mixed with heavenlike sea and earth; +And song shot forth strong wings that took the sun +From inward, fledged with might of sorrow and mirth +And father's fire made mortal in his son. +Nor was not spirit of strength in blast and breeze +To exalt again the sun's child and the sea's; +For as wild mares in Thessaly grow great +With child of ravishing winds, that violate +Their leaping length of limb with manes like fire +And eyes outburning heaven's +With fires more violent than the lightning levin's +And breath drained out and desperate of desire, +Even so the spirit in him, when winds grew strong, +Grew great with child of song. +Nor less than when his veins first leapt for joy +To draw delight in such as burns a boy, +Now too the soul of all his senses felt +The passionate pride of deep sea-pulses dealt +Through nerve and jubilant vein +As from the love and largess of old time, +And with his heart again +The tidal throb of all the tides keep rhyme +And charm him from his own soul's separate sense +With infinite and invasive influence +That made strength sweet in him and sweetness strong, +Being now no more a singer, but a song. + + Till one clear day when brighter sea-wind blew +And louder sea-shine lightened, for the waves +Were full of godhead and the light that saves, +His father's, and their spirit had pierced him through, +He felt strange breath and light all round him shed +That bowed him down with rapture; and he knew +His father's hand, hallowing his humbled head, +And the old great voice of the old good time, that said: + + "Child of my sunlight and the sea, from birth +A fosterling and fugitive on earth; +Sleepless of soul as wind or wave or fire, +A manchild with an ungrown God's desire; +Because thou hast loved nought mortal more than me, +Thy father, and thy mother-hearted sea; +Because thou hast set thine heart to sing, and sold +Life and life's love for song, God's living gold; +Because thou hast given thy flower and fire of youth +To feed men's hearts with visions, truer than truth; +Because thou hast kept in those world-wandering eyes +The light that makes me music of the skies; +Because thou hast heard with world-unwearied ears +The music that puts light into the spheres; +Have therefore in thine heart and in thy mouth +The sound of song that mingles north and south, +The song of all the winds that sing of me, +And in thy soul the sense of all the sea." + + + + +ON THE CLIFFS + +[Greek: imerophonos aedon.] + + SAPPHO. + + +Between the moondawn and the sundown here +The twilight hangs half starless; half the sea +Still quivers as for love or pain or fear +Or pleasure mightier than these all may be +A man's live heart might beat +Wherein a God's with mortal blood should meet +And fill its pulse too full to bear the strain +With fear or love or pleasure's twin-born, pain. +Fiercely the gaunt woods to the grim soil cling +That bears for all fair fruits +Wan wild sparse flowers of windy and wintry spring +Between the tortive serpent-shapen roots +Wherethrough their dim growth hardly strikes and shoots +And shews one gracious thing +Hardly, to speak for summer one sweet word +Of summer's self scarce heard. +But higher the steep green sterile fields, thick-set +With flowerless hawthorn even to the upward verge +Whence the woods gathering watch new cliffs emerge +Higher than their highest of crowns that sea-winds fret, +Hold fast, for all that night or wind can say, +Some pale pure colour yet, +Too dim for green and luminous for grey. +Between the climbing inland cliffs above +And these beneath that breast and break the bay, +A barren peace too soft for hate or love +Broods on an hour too dim for night or day. + +O wind, O wingless wind that walk'st the sea, +Weak wind, wing-broken, wearier wind than we, +Who are yet not spirit-broken, maimed like thee, +Who wail not in our inward night as thou +In the outer darkness now, +What word has the old sea given thee for mine ear +From thy faint lips to hear? +For some word would she send me, knowing not how. + +Nay, what far other word +Than ever of her was spoken, or of me +Or all my winged white kinsfolk of the sea +Between fresh wave and wave was ever heard, +Cleaves the clear dark enwinding tree with tree +Too close for stars to separate and to see +Enmeshed in multitudinous unity? +What voice of what strong God hath stormed and stirred +The fortressed rock of silence, rent apart +Even to the core Night's all-maternal heart? +What voice of God grown heavenlier in a bird, +Made keener of edge to smite +Than lightning--yea, thou knowest, O mother Night, +Keen as that cry from thy strange children sent +Wherewith the Athenian judgment-shrine was rent, +For wrath that all their wrath was vainly spent, +Their wrath for wrong made right +By justice in her own divine despite +That bade pass forth unblamed +The sinless matricide and unashamed? +Yea, what new cry is this, what note more bright +Than their song's wing of words was dark of flight, +What word is this thou hast heard, +Thine and not thine or theirs, O Night, what word +More keen than lightning and more sweet than light? +As all men's hearts grew godlike in one bird +And all those hearts cried on thee, crying with might, +Hear us, O mother Night. + +Dumb is the mouth of darkness as of death: +Light, sound and life are one +In the eyes and lips of dawn that draw the sun +To hear what first child's word with glimmering breath +Their weak wan weanling child the twilight saith; +But night makes answer none. + +God, if thou be God,--bird, if bird thou be,-- +Do thou then answer me. +For but one word, what wind soever blow, +Is blown up usward ever from the sea. +In fruitless years of youth dead long ago +And deep beneath their own dead leaves and snow +Buried, I heard with bitter heart and sere +The same sea's word unchangeable, nor knew +But that mine own life-days were changeless too +And sharp and salt with unshed tear on tear +And cold and fierce and barren; and my soul, +Sickening, swam weakly with bated breath +In a deep sea like death, +And felt the wind buffet her face with brine +Hard, and harsh thought on thought in long bleak roll +Blown by keen gusts of memory sad as thine +Heap the weight up of pain, and break, and leave +Strength scarce enough to grieve +In the sick heavy spirit, unmanned with strife +Of waves that beat at the tired lips of life. + +Nay, sad may be man's memory, sad may be +The dream he weaves him as for shadow of thee, +But scarce one breathing-space, one heartbeat long, +Wilt thou take shadow of sadness on thy song. +Not thou, being more than man or man's desire, +Being bird and God in one, +With throat of gold and spirit of the sun; +The sun whom all our souls and songs call sire, +Whose godhead gave thee, chosen of all our quire, +Thee only of all that serve, of all that sing +Before our sire and king, +Borne up some space on time's world-wandering wing, +This gift, this doom, to bear till time's wing tire-- +Life everlasting of eternal fire. + +Thee only of all; yet can no memory say +How many a night and day +My heart has been as thy heart, and my life +As thy life is, a sleepless hidden thing, +Full of the thirst and hunger of winter and spring, +That seeks its food not in such love or strife +As fill men's hearts with passionate hours and rest. +From no loved lips and on no loving breast +Have I sought ever for such gifts as bring +Comfort, to stay the secret soul with sleep. +The joys, the loves, the labours, whence men reap +Rathe fruit of hopes and fears, +I have made not mine; the best of all my days +Have been as those fair fruitless summer strays, +Those water-waifs that but the sea-wind steers, +Flakes of glad foam or flowers on footless ways +That take the wind in season and the sun, +And when the wind wills is their season done. + +For all my days as all thy days from birth +My heart as thy heart was in me as thee, +Fire; and not all the fountains of the sea +Have waves enough to quench it, nor on earth +Is fuel enough to feed, +While day sows night and night sows day for seed. + +We were not marked for sorrow, thou nor I, +For joy nor sorrow, sister, were we made, +To take delight and grief to live and die, +Assuaged by pleasures or by pains affrayed +That melt men's hearts and alter; we retain +A memory mastering pleasure and all pain, +A spirit within the sense of ear and eye, +A soul behind the soul, that seeks and sings +And makes our life move only with its wings +And feed but from its lips, that in return +Feed of our hearts wherein the old fires that burn +Have strength not to consume +Nor glory enough to exalt us past our doom. + +_Ah, ah, the doom_ (thou knowest whence rang that wail) +_Of the shrill nightingale!_ +(From whose wild lips, thou knowest, that wail was thrown) +_For round about her have the great gods cast +A wing-borne body, and clothed her close and fast +With a sweet life that hath no part in moan. +But me, for me_ (how hadst thou heart to hear?) +_Remains a sundering with the two-edged spear._ + +_Ah, for her doom!_ so cried in presage then +The bodeful bondslave of the king of men, +And might not win her will. +Too close the entangling dragnet woven of crime, +The snare of ill new-born of elder ill, +The curse of new time for an elder time, +Had caught, and held her yet, +Enmeshed intolerably in the intolerant net, +Who thought with craft to mock the God most high, +And win by wiles his crown of prophecy +From the Sun's hand sublime, +As God were man, to spare or to forget. + +But thou,--the gods have given thee and forgiven thee +More than our master gave +That strange-eyed spirit-wounded strange-tongued slave +There questing houndlike where the roofs red-wet +Reeked as a wet red grave. +Life everlasting has their strange grace given thee, +Even hers whom thou wast wont to sing and serve +With eyes, but not with song, too swift to swerve; +Yet might not even thine eyes estranged estrange her, +Who seeing thee too, but inly, burn and bleed +Like that pale princess-priest of Priam's seed, +For stranger service gave thee guerdon stranger; +If this indeed be guerdon, this indeed +Her mercy, this thy meed-- +That thou, being more than all we born, being higher +Than all heads crowned of him that only gives +The light whereby man lives, +The bay that bids man moved of God's desire +Lay hand on lute or lyre, +Set lip to trumpet or deflowered green reed-- +If this were given thee for a grace indeed, +That thou, being first of all these, thou alone +Shouldst have the grace to die not, but to live +And lose nor change one pulse of song, one tone +Of all that were thy lady's and thine own, +Thy lady's whom thou criedst on to forgive, +Thou, priest and sacrifice on the altar-stone +Where none may worship not of all that live, +Love's priestess, errant on dark ways diverse; +If this were grace indeed for Love to give, +If this indeed were blessing and no curse. + +Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song, +Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love, +Name above all names that are lights above, +We have loved, praised, pitied, crowned and done thee wrong, +O thou past praise and pity; thou the sole +Utterly deathless, perfect only and whole +Immortal, body and soul. +For over all whom time hath overpast +The shadow of sleep inexorable is cast, +The implacable sweet shadow of perfect sleep +That gives not back what life gives death to keep; +Yea, all that lived and loved and sang and sinned +Are all borne down death's cold sweet soundless wind +That blows all night and knows not whom its breath, +Darkling, may touch to death: +But one that wind hath touched and changed not,--one +Whose body and soul are parcel of the sun; +One that earth's fire could burn not, nor the sea +Quench; nor might human doom take hold on thee; +All praise, all pity, all dreams have done thee wrong, +All love, with eyes love-blinded from above; +Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love, +Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song. + +Hast thou none other answer then for me +Than the air may have of thee, +Or the earth's warm woodlands girdling with green girth +Thy secret sleepless burning life on earth, +Or even the sea that once, being woman crowned +And girt with fire and glory of anguish round, +Thou wert so fain to seek to, fain to crave +If she would hear thee and save +And give thee comfort of thy great green grave? +Because I have known thee always who thou art, +Thou knowest, have known thee to thy heart's own heart, +Nor ever have given light ear to storied song +That did thy sweet name sweet unwitting wrong, +Nor ever have called thee nor would call for shame, +Thou knowest, but inly by thine only name, +Sappho--because I have known thee and loved, hast thou +None other answer now? +As brother and sister were we, child and bird, +Since thy first Lesbian word +Flamed on me, and I knew not whence I knew +This was the song that struck my whole soul through, +Pierced my keen spirit of sense with edge more keen, +Even when I knew not,--even ere sooth was seen,-- +When thou wast but the tawny sweet winged thing +Whose cry was but of spring. + +And yet even so thine ear should hear me--yea, +Hear me this nightfall by this northland bay, +Even for their sake whose loud good word I had, +Singing of thee in the all-beloved clime +Once, where the windy wine of spring makes mad +Our sisters of Majano, who kept time +Clear to my choral rhyme. +Yet was the song acclaimed of these aloud +Whose praise had made mute humbleness misproud, +The song with answering song applauded thus, +But of that Daulian dream of Itylus. +So but for love's love haply was it--nay, +How else?--that even their song took my song's part, +For love of love and sweetness of sweet heart, +Or god-given glorious madness of mid May +And heat of heart and hunger and thirst to sing, +Full of the new wine of the wind of spring. + +Or if this were not, and it be not sin +To hold myself in spirit of thy sweet kin, +In heart and spirit of song; +If this my great love do thy grace no wrong, +Thy grace that gave me grace to dwell therein; +If thy gods thus be my gods, and their will +Made my song part of thy song--even such part +As man's hath of God's heart-- +And my life like as thy life to fulfil; +What have our gods then given us? Ah, to thee, +Sister, much more, much happier than to me, +Much happier things they have given, and more of grace +Than falls to man's light race; +For lighter are we, all our love and pain +Lighter than thine, who knowest of time or place +Thus much, that place nor time +Can heal or hurt or lull or change again +The singing soul that makes his soul sublime +Who hears the far fall of its fire-fledged rhyme +Fill darkness as with bright and burning rain +Till all the live gloom inly glows, and light +Seems with the sound to cleave the core of night. + +The singing soul that moves thee, and that moved +When thou wast woman, and their songs divine +Who mixed for Grecian mouths heaven's lyric wine +Fell dumb, fell down reproved +Before one sovereign Lesbian song of thine. +That soul, though love and life had fain held fast, +Wind-winged with fiery music, rose and past +Through the indrawn hollow of earth and heaven and hell, +As through some strait sea-shell +The wide sea's immemorial song,--the sea +That sings and breathes in strange men's ears of thee +How in her barren bride-bed, void and vast, +Even thy soul sang itself to sleep at last. + +To sleep? Ah, then, what song is this, that here +Makes all the night one ear, +One ear fulfilled and mad with music, one +Heart kindling as the heart of heaven, to hear +A song more fiery than the awakening sun +Sings, when his song sets fire +To the air and clouds that build the dead night's pyre? +_O thou of divers-coloured mind, O thou +Deathless, God's daughter subtle-souled_--lo, now, +Now too the song above all songs, in flight +Higher than the day-star's height, +And sweet as sound the moving wings of night! +_Thou of the divers-coloured seat_--behold, +Her very song of old!-- +_O deathless, O God's daughter subtle-souled!_ +That same cry through this boskage overhead +Rings round reiterated, +Palpitates as the last palpitated, +The last that panted through her lips and died +Not down this grey north sea's half sapped cliff-side +That crumbles toward the coastline, year by year +More near the sands and near; +The last loud lyric fiery cry she cried, +Heard once on heights Leucadian,--heard not here. + +Not here; for this that fires our northland night, +This is the song that made +Love fearful, even the heart of love afraid, +With the great anguish of its great delight. +No swan-song, no far-fluttering half-drawn breath, +No word that love of love's sweet nature saith, +No dirge that lulls the narrowing lids of death, +No healing hymn of peace-prevented strife,-- +This is her song of life. + +_I loved thee_,--hark, one tenderer note than all-- +_Atthis, of old time, once_--one low long fall, +Sighing--one long low lovely loveless call, +Dying--one pause in song so flamelike fast-- +_Atthis, long since in old time overpast_-- +One soft first pause and last. +One,--then the old rage of rapture's fieriest rain +Storms all the music-maddened night again. + +_Child of God, close craftswoman, I beseech thee, +Bid not ache nor agony break nor master, +Lady, my spirit_-- +O thou her mistress, might her cry not reach thee? +Our Lady of all men's loves, could Love go past her, +Pass, and not hear it? + +She hears not as she heard not; hears not me, +O treble-natured mystery,--how should she +Hear, or give ear?--who heard and heard not thee; +Heard, and went past, and heard not; but all time +Hears all that all the ravin of his years +Hath cast not wholly out of all men's ears +And dulled to death with deep dense funeral chime +Of their reiterate rhyme. +And now of all songs uttering all her praise, +All hers who had thy praise and did thee wrong, +Abides one song yet of her lyric days, +Thine only, this thy song. + +O soul triune, woman and god and bird, +Man, man at least has heard. +All ages call thee conqueror, and thy cry +The mightiest as the least beneath the sky +Whose heart was ever set to song, or stirred +With wind of mounting music blown more high +Than wildest wing may fly, +Hath heard or hears,--even AEschylus as I. +But when thy name was woman, and thy word +Human,--then haply, surely then meseems +This thy bird's note was heard on earth of none, +Of none save only in dreams. +In all the world then surely was but one +Song; as in heaven at highest one sceptred sun +Regent, on earth here surely without fail +One only, one imperious nightingale. +Dumb was the field, the woodland mute, the lawn +Silent; the hill was tongueless as the vale +Even when the last fair waif of cloud that felt +Its heart beneath the colouring moonrays melt, +At high midnoon of midnight half withdrawn, +Bared all the sudden deep divine moondawn. +Then, unsaluted by her twin-born tune, +That latter timeless morning of the moon +Rose past its hour of moonrise; clouds gave way +To the old reconquering ray, +But no song answering made it more than day; +No cry of song by night +Shot fire into the cloud-constraining light. +One only, one AEolian island heard +Thrill, but through no bird's throat, +In one strange manlike maiden's godlike note, +The song of all these as a single bird. +Till the sea's portal was as funeral gate +For that sole singer in all time's ageless date +Singled and signed for so triumphal fate, +All nightingales but one in all the world +All her sweet life were silent; only then, +When her life's wing of womanhood was furled, +Their cry, this cry of thine was heard again, +As of me now, of any born of men. +Through sleepless clear spring nights filled full of thee, +Rekindled here, thy ruling song has thrilled +The deep dark air and subtle tender sea +And breathless hearts with one bright sound fulfilled. +Or at midnoon to me +Swimming, and birds about my happier head +Skimming, one smooth soft way by water and air, +To these my bright born brethren and to me +Hath not the clear wind borne or seemed to bear +A song wherein all earth and heaven and sea +Were molten in one music made of thee +To enforce us, O our sister of the shore, +Look once in heart back landward and adore? +For songless were we sea-mews, yet had we +More joy than all things joyful of thee--more, +Haply, than all things happiest; nay, save thee, +In thy strong rapture of imperious joy +Too high for heart of sea-borne bird or boy, +What living things were happiest if not we? +But knowing not love nor change nor wrath nor wrong, +No more we knew of song. + +Song, and the secrets of it, and their might, +What blessings curse it and what curses bless, +I know them since my spirit had first in sight, +Clear as thy song's words or the live sun's light, +The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness +That held the fire eternal; eye and ear +Were as a god's to see, a god's to hear, +Through all his hours of daily and nightly chime, +The sundering of the two-edged spear of time: +The spear that pierces even the sevenfold shields +Of mightiest Memory, mother of all songs made, +And wastes all songs as roseleaves kissed and frayed +As here the harvest of the foam-flowered fields; +But thine the spear may waste not that he wields +Since first the God whose soul is man's live breath, +The sun whose face hath our sun's face for shade, +Put all the light of life and love and death +Too strong for life, but not for love too strong, +Where pain makes peace with pleasure in thy song, +And in thine heart, where love and song make strife, +Fire everlasting of eternal life. + + + + +THE GARDEN OF CYMODOCE + + +Sea, and bright wind, and heaven of ardent air, +More dear than all things earth-born; O to me +Mother more dear than love's own longing, sea, +More than love's eyes are, fair, +Be with my spirit of song as wings to bear, +As fire to feel and breathe and brighten; be +A spirit of sense more deep of deity, +A light of love, if love may be, more strong +In me than very song. +For song I have loved with second love, but thee, +Thee first, thee, mother; ere my songs had breath, +That love of loves, whose bondage makes man free, +Was in me strong as death. +And seeing no slave may love thee, no, not one +That loves not freedom more, +And more for thy sake loves her, and for hers +Thee; or that hates not, on whate'er thy shore +Or what thy wave soever, all things done +Of man beneath the sun +In his despite and thine, to cross and curse +Your light and song that as with lamp and verse +Guide safe the strength of our sphered universe, +Thy breath it was, thou knowest, and none but thine, +That taught me love of one thing more divine. + + Ah, yet my youth was old [_Str._ 1. + Its first years dead and cold + As last year's autumn's gold, +And all my spirit of singing sick and sad and sere, + Or ever I might behold + The fairest of thy fold + Engirt, enringed, enrolled, +In all thy flower-sweet flock of islands dear and near. + + Yet in my heart I deemed [_Str._ 2. + The fairest things, meseemed, + Truth, dreaming, ever dreamed, +Had made mine eyes already like a god's to see: + Of all sea-things that were + Clothed on with water and air, + That none could live more fair +Than thy sweet love long since had shown for love to me. + + I knew not, mother of mine, [_Ant._ 1. + That one birth more divine + Than all births else of thine +That hang like flowers or jewels on thy deep soft breast + Was left for me to shine + Above thy girdling line + Of bright and breathing brine, +To take mine eyes with rapture and my sense with rest. + + That this was left for me, [_Ant._2. + Mother, to have of thee, + To touch, to taste, to see, +To feel as fire fulfilling all my blood and breath, + As wine of living fire + Keen as the heart's desire + That makes the heart its pyre +And on its burning visions burns itself to death. + +For here of all thy waters, here of all +Thy windy ways the wildest, and beset +As some beleaguered city's war-breached wall +With deaths enmeshed all round it in deep net, +Thick sown with rocks deadlier than steel, and fierce +With loud cross-countering currents, where the ship +Flags, flickering like a wind-bewildered leaf, +The densest weft of waves that prow may pierce +Coils round the sharpest warp of shoals that dip +Suddenly, scarce well under for one brief +Keen breathing-space between the streams adverse, +Scarce showing the fanged edge of one hungering lip +Or one tooth lipless of the ravening reef; +And midmost of the murderous water's web +All round it stretched and spun, +Laughs, reckless of rough tide and raging ebb, +The loveliest thing that shines against the sun. + +O flower of all wind-flowers and sea-flowers, [_Str._ 3. + Made lovelier by love of the sea +Than thy golden own field-flowers, or tree-flowers + Like foam of the sea-facing tree! +No foot but the seamew's there settles + On the spikes of thine anthers like horns, +With snow-coloured spray for thy petals, + Black rocks for thy thorns. + +Was it here, in the waste of his waters, [_Ant._ 3. + That the lordly north wind, when his love +On the fairest of many king's daughters + Bore down for a spoil from above, +Chose forth of all farthest far islands + As a haven to harbour her head, +Of all lowlands on earth and all highlands, + His bride-worthy bed? + +Or haply, my sea-flower, he found thee [_Str._ 4. + Made fast as with anchors to land, +And broke, that his waves might be round thee, + Thy fetters like rivets of sand? +And afar by the blast of him drifted + Thy blossom of beauty was borne, +As a lark by the heart in her lifted + To mix with the morn? + +By what rapture of rage, by what vision [_Ant._ 4. + Of a heavenlier heaven than above, +Was he moved to devise thy division + From the land as a rest for his love? +As a nest when his wings would remeasure + The ways where of old they would be, +As a bride-bed upbuilt for his pleasure + By sea-rock and sea? + +For in no deeps of midmost inland May +More flowerbright flowers the hawthorn, or more sweet +Swells the wild gold of the earth for wandering feet; +For on no northland way +Crowds the close whin-bloom closer, set like thee +With thorns about for fangs of sea-rock shown +Through blithe lips of the bitter brine to lee; +Nor blithelier landward comes the sea-wind blown, +Nor blithelier leaps the land-wind back to sea: +Nor louder springs the living song of birds +To shame our sweetest words. +And in the narrowest of thine hollowest hold +For joy thine aspens quiver as though for cold, +And many a self-lit flower-illumined tree +Outlaughs with snowbright or with rosebright glee +The laughter of the fields whose laugh is gold. +Yea, even from depth to height, +Even thine own beauty with its own delight +Fulfils thine heart in thee an hundredfold +Beyond the larger hearts of islands bright +With less intense contraction of desire +Self-satiate, centred in its own deep fire; +Of shores not self-enchanted and entranced +By heavenly severance from all shadow of mirth +Or mourning upon earth: +As thou, by no similitude enhanced, +By no fair foil made fairer, but alone +Fair as could be no beauty save thine own, +And wondrous as no world-beholden wonder: +Throned, with the world's most perilous sea for throne, +And praised from all its choral throats of thunder. + + Yet one praise hast thou, holier [_Str._ 5. + Than praise of theirs may be, + To exalt thee, wert thou lowlier + Than all that take the sea + With shores whence waves ebb slowlier + Than these fall off from thee; + +That One, whose name gives glory, [_Ant._ 5. + One man whose life makes light, +One crowned and throned in story + Above all empire's height, +Came, where thy straits run hoary, + To hold thee fast in sight; + +With hallowing eyes to hold thee, [_Str._ 6. + With rapturous heart to read, +To encompass and enfold thee + With love whence all men feed, +To brighten and behold thee, + Who is mightiest of man's seed: + +More strong than strong disaster, [_Ant._ 6. + For fate and fear too strong; +Earth's friend, whose eyes look past her, + Whose hands would purge of wrong; +Our lord, our light, our master, + Whose word sums up all song. + +Be it April or September [_Str._ 7. + That plays his perfect part, +Burn June or blow December, + Thou canst not in thine heart +But rapturously remember, + All heavenlike as thou art, + +Whose footfall made thee fairer, [_Ant._ 7. + Whose passage more divine, +Whose hand, our thunder-bearer, + Held fire that bade thee shine +With subtler glory and rarer + Than thrills the sun's own shrine. + +Who knows how then his godlike banished gaze +Turned haply from its goal of natural days +And homeward hunger for the clear French clime, +Toward English earth, whereunder now the Accursed +Rots, in the hate of all men's hearts inhearsed, +A carrion ranker to the sense of time +For that sepulchral gift of stone and lime +By royal grace laid on it, less of weight +Than the load laid by fate, +Fate, misbegotten child of his own crime, +Son of as foul a bastard-bearing birth +As even his own on earth; +Less heavy than the load of cursing piled +By loyal grace of all souls undefiled +On one man's head, whose reeking soul made rotten +The loathed live corpse on earth once misbegotten? +But when our Master's homeless feet were here +France yet was foul with joy more foul than fear, +And slavery chosen, more vile by choice of chance +Than dull damnation of inheritance +From Russian year to year +Alas fair mother of men, alas my France, +What ailed thee so to fall, that wert so dear +For all men's sake to all men, in such trance, +Plague-stricken? Had the very Gods, that saw +Thy glory lighten on us for a law, +Thy gospel go before us for a guide, +Had these waxed envious of our love and awe, +Or was it less their envy than thy pride +That bared thy breast for the obscene vulture-claw, +High priestess, by whose mouth Love prophesied +That fate should yet mean freedom? Howsoever, +That hour, the helper of men's hearts, we praise, +Which blots out of man's book of after days +The name above all names abhorred for ever. +And His name shall we praise not, whom these flowers, +These rocks and ravening waters bound for girth +Round this wild starry spanlong plot of earth, +Beheld, the mightier for those heavier hours +That bowed his heart not down +Nor marred one crowning blossom of his crown? +For surely, might we say, +Even from the dark deep sea-gate that makes way +Through channelled darkness for the darkling day +Hardly to let men's faltering footfall win +The sunless passage in, +Where breaks a world aflower against the sun, +A small sweet world of wave-encompassed wonder +Kept from the wearier landward world asunder +With violence of wild waters, and with thunder +Of many winds as one, +To where the keen sea-current grinds and frets +The black bright sheer twin flameless Altarlets +That lack no live blood-sacrifice they crave +Of shipwreck and the shrine-subservient wave, +Having for priest the storm-wind, and for choir +Lightnings and clouds whose prayer and praise are fire, +All the isle acclaimed him coming; she, the least +Of all things loveliest that the sea's love hides +From strange men's insult, walled about with tides +That bid strange guests back from her flower-strewn feast, +Set all her fields aflower, her flowers aflame, +To applaud him that he came. +Nor surely flashed not something of delight +Through that steep strait of rock whose twin-cliffed height +Links crag with crag reiterate, land with land, +By one sheer thread of narrowing precipice +Bifront, that binds and sunders +Abyss from hollower imminent abyss +And wilder isle with island, blind for bliss +Of sea that lightens and of wind that thunders; +Nor pealed not surely back from deep to steep +Reverberate acclamation, steep to deep +Inveterately reclaiming and replying +Praise, and response applausive; nor the sea, +For all the sea-wind's crying, +Knew not the song her sister, even as she +Thundering, or like her confluent spring-tides brightening, +And like her darkness lightening; +The song that moved about him silent, now +Both soundless wings refolded and refurled +On that Promethean brow, +Then quivering as for flight that wakes the world. + +From the roots of the rocks underlying the gulfs that engird it around + [_Str._ 8. +Was the isle not enkindled with light of him landing, or thrilled not + with sound? +Yea, surely the sea like a harper laid hand on the shore as a lyre, +As the lyre in his own for a birthright of old that was given of his sire, +And the hand of the child was put forth on the chords yet alive and aflame +From the hand of the God that had wrought it in heaven; and the hand was + the same. +And the tongue of the child spake, singing; and never a note that he sang, +But the strings made answer unstricken, as though for the God they rang. +And the eyes of the child shone, lightening; and touched as by life at his + nod, +They shuddered with music, and quickened as though from the glance of the + God. +So trembled the heart of the hills and the rocks to receive him, and + yearned +With desirous delight of his presence and love that beholding him burned. +Yea, down through the mighty twin hollows where never the sunlight shall + be, +Deep sunk under imminent earth, and subdued to the stress of the sea, +That feel when the dim week changes by change of their tides in the dark, +As the wave sinks under within them, reluctant, removed from its mark, +Even there in the terror of twilight in bloom with its blossoms ablush, +Did a sense of him touch not the gleam of their flowers with a fierier + flush? +Though the sun they behold not for ever, yet knew they not over them One +Whose soul was the soul of the morning, whose song was the song of the sun? +But the secrets inviolate of sunlight in hollows untrodden of day, +Shall he dream what are these who beholds not? or he that hath seen, + shall he say? +For the path is for passage of sea-mews; and he that hath glided and leapt +Over sea-grass and sea-rock, alighting as one from a citadel crept +That his foemen beleaguer, descending by darkness and stealth, at the last +Peers under, and all is as hollow to hellward, agape and aghast. +But afloat and afar in the darkness a tremulous colour subsides [_Ant._ 8. +From the crimson high crest of the purple-peaked roof to the soft-coloured + sides +That brighten as ever they widen till downward the level is won +Of the soundless and colourless water that knows not the sense of the sun: +From the crown of the culminant arch to the floor of the lakelet abloom, +One infinite blossom of blossoms innumerable aflush through the gloom. +All under the deeps of the darkness are glimmering; all over impends +An immeasurable infinite flower of the dark that dilates and descends, +That exults and expands in its breathless and blind efflorescence of heart +As it broadens and bows to the wave-ward, and breathes not, and hearkens + apart. +As a beaker inverse at a feast on Olympus, exhausted of wine, +But inlaid as with rose from the lips of Dione that left it divine: +From the lips everliving of laughter and love everlasting, that leave +In the cleft of his heart who shall kiss them a snake to corrode it and + cleave. +So glimmers the gloom into glory, the glory recoils into gloom, +That the eye of the sun could not kindle, the lip not of Love could relume. +So darkens reverted the cup that the kiss of her mouth set on fire: +So blackens a brand in his eyeshot asmoulder awhile from the pyre. +For the beam from beneath and without it refrangent again from the wave +Strikes up through the portal a ghostly reverse on the dome of the cave, +On the depth of the dome ever darkling and dim to the crown of its arc: +That the sun-coloured tapestry, sunless for ever, may soften the dark. +But within through the side-seen archway a glimmer again from the right +Is the seal of the sea's tide set on the mouth of the mystery of night. +And the seal on the seventh day breaks but a little, that man by its mean +May behold what the sun hath not looked on, the stars of the night have + not seen. + +Even like that hollow-bosomed rose, inverse +And infinite, the heaven of thy vast verse, +Our Master, over all our souls impends, +Imminent; we, with heart-enkindled eyes +Upwondering, search the music-moulded skies +Sphere by sweet sphere, concordant as it blends +Light of bright sound, sound of clear light, in one, +As all the stars found utterance through the sun. +And all that heaven is like a rose in bloom, +Flower-coloured, where its own sun's fires illume +As from one central and imperious heart +The whole sky's every part: +But lightening still and darkling downward, lo +The light and darkness of it, +The leaping of the lamping levin afar +Between the full moon and the sunset star, +The war-song of the sounding skies aglow, +That have the herald thunder for their prophet: +From north to south the lyric lights that leap, +The tragic sundawns reddening east and west +As with bright blood from one Promethean breast, +The peace of noon that strikes the sea to sleep, +The wail over the world of all that weep, +The peace of night when death brings life on rest. + +Goddess who gatherest all the herded waves +Into thy great sweet pastureless green fold, +Even for our love of old, +I pray thee by thy power that slays and saves, +Take thou my song of this thy flower to keep +Who hast my heart in hold; +And from thine high place of thy garden-steep, +Where one sheer terrace oversees thy deep +From the utmost rock-reared height +Down even to thy dear depths of night and light, +Take my song's salutation; and on me +Breathe back the benediction of thy sea. + + + +_Between two seas the sea-bird's wing makes halt, + Wind-weary; while with lifting head he waits + For breath to reinspire him from the gates +That open still toward sunrise on the vault +High-domed of morning, and in flight's default + With spreading sense of spirit anticipates + What new sea now may lure beyond the straits +His wings exulting that her winds exalt +And fill them full as sails to seaward spread, + Fulfilled with fair speed's promise. Pass, my song, +Forth to the haven of thy desire and dread, + The presence of our lord, long loved and long +Far off above beholden, who to thee +Was as light kindling all a windy sea._ + + + + +BIRTHDAY ODE + +FOR THE ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL OF VICTOR HUGO, +FEBRUARY 26, 1880 + + + Spring, born in heaven ere many a springtime flown, [_Strophe_ 1. + Dead spring that sawest on earth + A babe of deathless birth, + A flower of rosier flowerage than thine own, + A glory of goodlier godhead; even this day, + That floods the mist of February with May, + And strikes death dead with sunlight, and the breath + Whereby the deadly doers are done to death, + They that in day's despite + Would crown the imperial night, 10 + And in deep hate of insubmissive spring + Rethrone the royal winter for a king, + This day that casts the days of darkness down + Low as a broken crown, + We call thee from the gulf of deeds and days, + Deathless and dead, to hear us whom we praise. + + A light of many lights about thine head, [_Antistrophe_ 1. + Lights manifold and one, + Stars molten in a sun, + A sun of divers beams incorporated, 20 + Compact of confluent aureoles, each more fair + Than man, save only at highest of man, may wear, + So didst thou rise, when this our grey-grown age + Had trod two paces of his pilgrimage, + Two paces through the gloom + From his fierce father's tomb, + Led by cross lights of lightnings, and the flame + That burned in darkness round one darkling name; + So didst thou rise, nor knewest thy glory, O thou + Re-risen upon us now, 30 + The glory given thee for a grace to give, + And take the praise of all men's hearts that live. + + First in the dewy ray [_Epode_ 1. + Ere dawn be slain of day + The fresh crowned lilies of discrowned kings' prime + Sprang splendid as of old + With moonlight-coloured gold + And rays refract from the oldworld heaven of time; + Pale with proud light of stars decreased 39 +In westward wane reluctant from the conquering east. + + But even between their golden olden bloom [_Str._ 2. + Strange flowers of wildwood glory, + With frost and moonshine hoary, + Thrust up the new growths of their green-leaved gloom, + Red buds of ballad blossom, where the dew + Blushed as with bloodlike passion, and its hue + Was as the life and love of hearts on flame, + And fire from forth of each live chalice came: + Young sprays of elder song, + Stem straight and petal strong, 50 + Bright foliage with dark frondage overlaid, + And light the lovelier for its lordlier shade; + And morn and even made loud in woodland lone + With cheer of clarions blown, + And through the tournay's clash and clarion's cheer + Laugh to laugh echoing, tear washed off by tear. + + Then eastward far past northland lea and lawn + Beneath a heavier light [_Ant._ 2. + Of stormier day and night + Began the music of the heaven of dawn; 60 + Bright sound of battle along the Grecian waves, + Loud light of thunder above the Median graves, + New strife, new song on AEschylean seas, + Canaris risen above Themistocles; + Old glory of warrior ghosts + Shed fresh on filial hosts, + With dewfall redder than the dews of day, + And earth-born lightnings out of bloodbright spray; + Then through the flushed grey gloom on shadowy sheaves + Low flights of falling leaves; 70 + And choirs of birds transfiguring as they throng + All the world's twilight and the soul's to song. + + Voices more dimly deep [_Ep._ 2. + Than the inmost heart of sleep, + And tenderer than the rose-mouthed morning's lips; + And midmost of them heard + The viewless water's word, + The sea's breath in the wind's wing and the ship's, + That bids one swell and sound and smite 79 +And rend that other in sunder as with fangs by night. + + But ah! the glory of shadow and mingling ray, [_Str._ 3. + The story of morn and even + Whose tale was writ in heaven + And had for scroll the night, for scribe the day! + For scribe the prophet of the morning, far + Exalted over twilight and her star; + For scroll beneath his Apollonian hand + The dim twin wastes of sea and glimmering land. + Hark, on the hill-wind, clear + For all men's hearts to hear 90 + Sound like a stream at nightfall from the steep + That all time's depths might answer, deep to deep, + With trumpet-measures of triumphal wail + From windy vale to vale, + The crying of one for love that strayed and sinned + Whose brain took madness of the mountain wind. + + Between the birds of brighter and duskier wing, [_Ant._ 3. + What mightier-moulded forms + Girt with red clouds and storms + Mix their strong hearts with theirs that soar and sing? 100 + Before the storm-blast blown of death's dark horn + The marriage moonlight withers, that the morn + For two made one may find three made by death + One ruin at the blasting of its breath: + Clothed with heart's flame renewed + And strange new maidenhood, + Faith lightens on the lips that bloomed for hire + Pure as the lightning of love's first-born fire: + Wide-eyed and patient ever, till the curse + Find where to fall and pierce, 110 + Keen expiation whets with edge more dread + A father's wrong to smite a father's head. + + Borgia, supreme from birth [_Ep._ 3. + As loveliest born on earth + Since earth bore ever women that were fair; + Scarce known of her own house + If daughter or sister or spouse; + Who holds men's hearts yet helpless with her hair; + The direst of divine things made, +Bows down her amorous aureole half suffused with shade. 120 + + As red the fire-scathed royal northland bloom, [_Str._ 4. + That left our story a name + Dyed through with blood and flame + Ere her life shrivelled from a fierier doom + Than theirs her priests bade pass from earth in fire + To slake the thirst of God their Lord's desire: + As keen the blast of love-enkindled fate + That burst the Paduan tyrant's guarded gate: + As sad the softer moan + Made one with music's own 130 + For one whose feet made music as they fell + On ways by loveless love made hot from hell: + But higher than these and all the song thereof + The perfect heart of love, + The heart by fraud and hate once crucified, + That, dying, gave thanks, and in thanksgiving died. + + Above the windy walls that rule the Rhine [_Ant._ 4. + A noise of eagles' wings + And wintry war-time rings, + With roar of ravage trampling corn and vine 140 + And storm of wrathful wassail dashed with song, + And under these the watch of wreakless wrong, + With fire of eyes anhungered; and above + These, the light of the stricken eyes of love, + The faint sweet eyes that follow + The wind-outwinging swallow, + And face athirst with young wan yearning mouth + Turned after toward the unseen all-golden south, + Hopeless to see the birds back ere life wane, + Or the leaves born again; 150 + And still the might and music mastering fate + Of life more strong than death and love than hate. + + In spectral strength biform [_Ep._ 4. + Stand the twin sons of storm + Transfigured by transmission of one hand + That gives the new-born time + Their semblance more sublime + Than once it lightened over each man's land; + There Freedom's winged and wide-mouthed hound, 159 +And here our high Dictator, in his son discrowned. + + What strong-limbed shapes of kindred throng round these [_Str._ 5. + Before, between, behind, + Sons born of one man's mind, + Fed at his hands and fostered round his knees? + Fear takes the spirit in thraldom at his nod, + And pity makes it as the spirit of God, + As his own soul that from her throne above + Sheds on all souls of men her showers of love, + On all earth's evil and pain + Pours mercy forth as rain 170 + And comfort as the dewfall on dry land; + And feeds with pity from a faultless hand + All by their own fault stricken, all cast out + By all men's scorn or doubt, + Or with their own hands wounded, or by fate + Brought into bondage of men's fear or hate. + + In violence of strange visions north and south + Confronted, east and west, [_Ant._ 5. + With frozen or fiery breast, + Eyes fixed or fevered, pale or bloodred mouth, 180 + Kept watch about his dawn-enkindled dreams; + But ere high noon a light of nearer beams + Made his young heaven of manhood more benign, + And love made soft his lips with spiritual wine, + And left them fired, and fed + With sacramental bread, + And sweet with honey of tenderer words than tears + To feed men's hopes and fortify men's fears, + And strong to silence with benignant breath + The lips that doom to death, 190 + And swift with speech like fire in fiery lands + To melt the steel's edge in the headsman's hands. + + Higher than they rose of old, [_Ep._ 5. + New builded now, behold, + The live great likeness of Our Lady's towers; + And round them like a dove + Wounded, and sick with love, + One fair ghost moving, crowned with fateful flowers, + Watched yet with eyes of bloodred lust 199 +And eyes of love's heart broken and unbroken trust. + + But sadder always under shadowier skies, [_Str._ 6. + More pale and sad and clear + Waxed always, drawn more near, + The face of Duty lit with Love's own eyes; + Till the awful hands that culled in rosier hours + From fairy-footed fields of wild old flowers + And sorcerous woods of Rhineland, green and hoary, + Young children's chaplets of enchanted story, + The great kind hands that showed + Exile its homeward road, 210 + And, as man's helper made his foeman God, + Of pity and mercy wrought themselves a rod, + And opened for Napoleon's wandering kin + France, and bade enter in, + And threw for all the doors of refuge wide, + Took to them lightning in the thunder-tide. + + For storm on earth above had risen from under, + Out of the hollow of hell, [_Ant._ 6. + Such storm as never fell + From darkest deeps of heaven distract with thunder; + A cloud of cursing, past all shape of thought, 221 + More foul than foulest dreams, and overfraught + With all obscene things and obscure of birth + That ever made infection of man's earth; + Having all hell for cloak + Wrapped round it as a smoke + And in its womb such offspring so defiled + As earth bare never for her loathliest child, + Rose, brooded, reddened, broke, and with its breath + Put France to poisonous death; 230 + Yea, far as heaven's red labouring eye could glance, + France was not, save in men cast forth of France. + + Then,--while the plague-sore grew [_Ep._ 6. + Two darkling decades through, + And rankled in the festering flesh of time,-- + Where darkness binds and frees + The wildest of wild seas + In fierce mutations of the unslumbering clime, + There, sleepless too, o'er shuddering wrong +One hand appointed shook the reddening scourge of song. 240 + + And through the lightnings of the apparent word + Dividing shame's dense night [_Str._ 7. + Sounds lovelier than the light + And light more sweet than song from night's own bird + Mixed each their hearts with other, till the gloom + Was glorious as with all the stars in bloom, + Sonorous as with all the spheres in chime + Heard far through flowering heaven: the sea, sublime + Once only with its own + Old winds' and waters' tone, 250 + Sad only or glad with its own glory, and crowned + With its own light, and thrilled with its own sound, + Learnt now their song, more sweet than heaven's may be, + Who pass away by sea; + The song that takes of old love's land farewell, + With pulse of plangent water like a knell. + + And louder ever and louder and yet more loud + Till night be shamed of morn [_Ant._ 7. + Rings the Black Huntsman's horn + Through darkening deeps beneath the covering cloud, 260 + Till all the wild beasts of the darkness hear; + Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear, + Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale, + Till spies and slayers on seats of judgment quail, + Till mitre and cowl bow down + And crumble as a crown, + Till Caesar driven to lair and hounded Pope + Reel breathless and drop heartless out of hope, + And one the uncleanest kinless beast of all + Lower than his fortune fall; 270 + The wolfish waif of casual empire, born + To turn all hate and horror cold with scorn. + + Yea, even at night's full noon [_Ep._ 7. + Light's birth-song brake in tune, + Spake, witnessing that with us one must be, + God; naming so by name + That priests have brought to shame + The strength whose scourge sounds on the smitten sea; + The mystery manifold of might +Which bids the wind give back to night the things of night. 280 + + Even God, the unknown of all time; force or thought, [_Str._ 8. + Nature or fate or will, + Clothed round with good and ill, + Veiled and revealed of all things and of nought, + Hooded and helmed with mystery, girt and shod + With light and darkness, unapparent God. + Him the high prophet o'er his wild work bent + Found indivisible ever and immanent + At hidden heart of truth, + In forms of age and youth 290 + Transformed and transient ever; masked and crowned, + From all bonds loosened and with all bonds bound, + Diverse and one with all things; love and hate, + Earth, and the starry state + Of heaven immeasurable, and years that flee + As clouds and winds and rays across the sea. + + But higher than stars and deeper than the waves + Of day and night and morrow [_Ant._ 8. + That roll for all time, sorrow + Keeps ageless watch over perpetual graves. 300 + From dawn to morning of the soul in flower, + Through toils and dreams and visions, to that hour + When all the deeps were opened, and one doom + Took two sweet lives to embrace them and entomb, + The strong song plies its wing + That makes the darkness ring + And the deep light reverberate sound as deep; + Song soft as flowers or grass more soft than sleep, + Song bright as heaven above the mounting bird, + Song like a God's tears heard 310 + Falling, fulfilled of life and death and light, + And all the stars and all the shadow of night. + + Till, when its flight hath past [_Ep._ 8. + Time's loftiest mark and last, + The goal where good kills evil with a kiss, + And Darkness in God's sight + Grows as his brother Light, + And heaven and hell one heart whence all the abyss + Throbs with love's music; from his trance +Love waking leads it home to her who stayed in France. 320 + + But now from all the world-old winds of the air [_Str._ 9. + One blast of record rings + As from time's hidden springs + With roar of rushing wings and fires that bear + Toward north and south sonorous, east and west, + Forth of the dark wherein its records rest, + The story told of the ages, writ nor sung + By man's hand ever nor by mortal tongue + Till, godlike with desire, + One tongue of man took fire, 330 + One hand laid hold upon the lightning, one + Rose up to bear time witness what the sun + Had seen, and what the moon and stars of night + Beholding lost not light: + From dawn to dusk what ways man wandering trod + Even through the twilight of the gods to God. + + From dawn of man and woman twain and one [_Ant._ 9. + When the earliest dews impearled + The front of all the world + Ringed with aurorean aureole of the sun, 340 + To days that saw Christ's tears and hallowing breath + Put life for love's sake in the lips of death, + And years as waves whose brine was fire, whose foam + Blood, and the ravage of Neronian Rome; + And the eastern crescent's horn + Mightier awhile than morn; + And knights whose lives were flights of eagles' wings, + And lives like snakes' lives of engendering kings; + And all the ravin of all the swords that reap + Lives cast as sheaves on heap 350 + From all the billowing harvest-fields of fight; + And sounds of love-songs lovelier than the light. + + The grim dim thrones of the east [_Ep._ 9. + Set for death's riotous feast + Round the bright board where darkling centuries wait, + And servile slaughter, mute, + Feeds power with fresh red fruit, + Glitter and groan with mortal food of fate; + And throne and cup and lamp's bright breath +Bear witness to their lord of only night and death. 360 + + Dead freedom by live empire lies defiled, [_Str._ 10. + And murder at his feet + Plies lust with wine and meat, + With offering of an old man and a child, + With holy body and blood, inexpiable + Communion in the sacrament of hell, + Till, reeking from their monstrous eucharist, + The lips wax cold that murdered where they kissed, + And empire in mid feast + Fall as a slaughtered beast 370 + Headless, and ease men's hungering hearts of fear + Lest God were none in heaven, to see nor hear, + And purge his own pollution with the flood + Poured of his black base blood + So first found healing, poisonous as it poured; + And on the clouds the archangel cleanse his sword. + + As at the word unutterable that made [_Ant._ 10. + Of day and night division, + From vision on to vision, 379 + From dream to dream, from darkness into shade, + From sunshine into sunlight, moves and lives + The steersman's eye, the helming hand that gives + Life to the wheels and wings that whirl along + The immeasurable impulse of the sphere of song + Through all the eternal years, + Beyond all stars and spheres, + Beyond the washing of the waves of time, + Beyond all heights where no thought else may climb, + Beyond the darkling dust of suns that were, + Past height and depth of air; 390 + And in the abyss whence all things move that are + Finds only living Love, the sovereign star. + + Nor less the weight and worth [_Ep._ 10. + Found even of love on earth + To wash all stain of tears and sins away, + On dying lips alit + That living knew not it, + In the winged shape of song with death to play: + To warm young children with its wings, +And try with fire the heart elect for godlike things. 400 + + For all worst wants of all most miserable [_Str._ 11. + With divine hands to deal + All balms and herbs that heal, + Among all woes whereunder poor men dwell + Our Master sent his servant Love, to be + On earth his witness; but the strange deep sea, + Mother of life and death inextricate, + What work should Love do there, to war with fate? + Yet there must Love too keep + At heart of the eyeless deep 410 + Watch, and wage war wide-eyed with all its wonders, + Lower than the lightnings of its waves, and thunders + Of seas less monstrous than the births they bred; + Keep high there heart and head, + And conquer: then for prize of all toils past + Feel the sea close them in again at last. + + A day of direr doom arisen thereafter [_Ant._ 11. + With cloud and fire in strife + Lightens and darkens life + Round one by man's hand masked with living laughter, 420 + A man by men bemonstered, but by love, + Watched with blind eyes as of a wakeful dove, + And wooed by lust, that in her rosy den + As fire on flesh feeds on the souls of men, + To take the intense impure + Burnt-offering of her lure, + Divine and dark and bright and naked, strange + With ravenous thirst of life reversed and change, + As though the very heaven should shrivel and swell + With hunger after hell, 430 + Run mad for dear damnation, and desire + To feel its light thrilled through with stings of fire. + + Above a windier sea, [_Ep._ 11. + The glory of Ninety-three + Fills heaven with blood-red and with rose-red beams + That earth beholding grows + Herself one burning rose + Flagrant and fragrant with strange deeds and dreams, + Dreams dyed as love's own flower, and deeds +Stained as with love's own life-blood, that for love's sake bleeds. 440 + + And deeper than all deeps of seas and skies [_Str._ 12. + Wherein the shadows are + Called sun and moon and star + That rapt conjecture metes with mounting eyes, + Loud with strange waves and lustrous with new spheres, + Shines, masked at once and manifest of years, + Shakespeare, a heaven of heavenly eyes beholden; + And forward years as backward years grow golden + With light of deeds and words + And flight of God's fleet birds, 450 + Angels of wrath and love and truth and pity; + And higher on exiled eyes their natural city + Dawns down the depths of vision, more sublime + Than all truths born of time; + And eyes that wept above two dear sons dead + Grow saving stars to guard one hopeless head. + + Bright round the brows of banished age had shone [_Ant._ 12. + In vision flushed with truth + The rosy glory of youth 459 + On streets and woodlands where in days long gone + Sweet love sang light and loud and deep and dear: + And far the trumpets of the dreadful year + Had pealed and wailed in darkness: last arose + The song of children, kindling as a rose + At breath of sunrise, born + Of the red flower of morn + Whose face perfumes deep heaven with odorous light + And thrills all through the wings of souls in flight + Close as the press of children at His knee + Whom if the high priest see, 470 + Dreaming, as homeless on dark earth he trod, + The lips that praise him shall not know for God. + + O sovereign spirit, above [_Ep._ 12. + All offering but man's love, + All praise and prayer and incense undefiled! + The one thing stronger found + Than towers with iron bound; + The one thing lovelier than a little child, + And deeper than the seas are deep, 479 +And tenderer than such tears of love as angels weep. + + Dante, the seer of all things evil and good, [_Str._ 13. + Beheld two ladies, Beauty + And high life-hallowing Duty, + That strove for sway upon his mind and mood + And held him in alternating accord + Fast bound at feet of either: but our lord, + The seer and singer of righteousness and wrong + Who stands now master of all the keys of song, + Sees both as dewdrops run + Together in the sun, 490 + For him not twain but one thing twice divine; + Even as his speech and song are bread and wine + For all souls hungering and all hearts athirst + At best of days and worst, + And both one sacrament of Love's great giving + To feed the spirit and sense of all souls living. + + The seventh day in the wind's month, ten years gone [_Ant._ 13. + Since heaven-espousing earth + Gave the Republic birth, + The mightiest soul put mortal raiment on 500 + That came forth singing ever in man's ears + Of all souls with us, and through all these years + Rings yet the lordliest, waxen yet more strong, + That on our souls hath shed itself in song, + Poured forth itself like rain + On souls like springing grain + That with its procreant beams and showers were fed + For living wine and sacramental bread; + Given all itself as air gives life and light, + Utterly, as of right; 510 + The goodliest gift our age hath given, to be + Ours, while the sun gives glory to the sea. + + Our Father and Master and Lord, [_Ep._ 13. + Who hast thy song for sword, + For staff thy spirit, and our hearts for throne: + As in past years of wrong, + Take now my subject song, + To no crowned head made humble but thine own; + That on thy day of worldly birth +Gives thanks for all thou hast given past thanks of all on earth. 520 + + * * * * * + + + + +NOTES + + +_v._ 33. _Odes et Ballades_, 1822-1824. + + 57. _Les Orientales_, 1829. + + 69. _Les Feuilles d'Automne_, 1831. + + 71. _Les Chants du Crepuscule_, 1835. + + 73. _Les Voix Interieures_, 1837. + + 81. _Les Rayons et les Ombres_, 1840. + + 101. _Hernani_, 1830. + + 105. _Marion de Lorme_, 1831. + + 109. _Le Roi s'amuse_, 1832. + + 113. _Lucrece Borgia_, 1833. + + 121. _Marie Tudor_, 1835. + + 127. _Angelo, Tyran de Padoue_, 1835. + + 129. _La Esmeralda_, 1836. + + 133. _Ruy Blas_, 1838. + + 137. _Les Burgraves_, 1842. + + 153. _Cromwell_, 1827: _Etude sur Mirabeau_, 1834 (_Litterature + et Philosophie melees_, 1819-1834). + + 177. _Han d'Islande_, 1823. _Bug-Jargal_, 1826. + + 182. _Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamne_, 1829: _Claude Gueux_, 1834. + + 193. _Notre-Dame de Paris_, 1831. + + 205. _Le Rhin_, 1845. + + 216. _Napoleon le Petit_, 1852. _Chatiments_, 1853. _Histoire + d'un Crime_, 1877. In this place I must take occasion to + relieve my conscience from a sense of duty unfulfilled so + long as I for one have not uttered my own poor private + protest--worthless and weightless though it may seem, if + cast as a grain into the scale of public opinion--against + a projected insult at once to contemporary France and to + the present only less than to past generations of + Englishmen. + + _On the proposed desecration of Westminster Abbey + by the erection of a monument to + the son of Napoleon III_ + + "Let us go hence." From the inmost shrine of grace + Where England holds the elect of all her dead + There comes a word like one of old time said + By gods of old cast out. Here is no place + At once for these and one of poisonous race. + Let each rise up from his dishallowed bed + And pass forth silent. Each divine veiled head + Shall speak in silence with averted face. + "Scorn everlasting and eternal shame + Eat out the rotting record of his name + Who had the glory of all these graves in trust + And turned it to a hissing. His offence + Makes havoc of their desecrated dust + Whose place is here no more. Let us go hence." + + Feb. 25, 1880. + + 297. _Les Contemplations_, 1856. + + 321. _La Legende des Siecles_. _Premiere serie_, 1859; _nouvelle + serie_, 1877. + + 392. _Les Miserables_, 1862. + + 409. _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_, 1866. + + 417. _L'Homme qui Rit_, 1869. + + 433. _Quatre-vingt-treize_, 1874. + + 441. _William Shakespeare_, 1864. + + 448. _Actes et Paroles_; _Avant l'Exil_, 1841-1851; _Pendant + l'Exil_, 1852-1870; _Depuis l'Exil_, 1870-1876. + + 452. _Paris_, 1867. + + 455. _Mes Fils_, 1875. + + 456. _Pour un Soldat_, 1875. + + 457. _Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois_, 1865. + + 462. _L'Annee Terrible_, 1872. + + 464. _L'Art d'etre Grandpere_, 1877. + + 470. _Le Pape_, 1878. + + 497. "Septidi ventose an X de la Republique (26 fevrier 1802)." + _Victor Hugo raconte par un temoin de sa vie_, 1863, + _tome_ 1, p. 28. + + At the end of such a list, so incomparable as to seem + incredible, of one great man's good works, we may be + forgiven the alteration of a word even in a verse from + AEschylus which we cannot choose but apply once more to + this leader in the advance of men made perfect through + doom of trial and long wayfaring, whose progress he + furthers by example and stimulates by song:-- + + [Greek: kurios esti throein hodion kratos aision andron + ekteleon; eti gar theothen katapneiei + peitho molpan + alkai sumphutos aion.] + + AEsch. _Agam._ 104-8. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Songs of the Springtides and Birthday +Ode, by Algernon Charles Swinburne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS OF THE SPRINGTIDES *** + +***** This file should be named 18287.txt or 18287.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/2/8/18287/ + +Produced by Paul Murray, Diane Monico, and the Project +Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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