That ever I should see this day,”
When sorrow swooned from him away
As blindly back he fell, and lay
Where sleep lets anguish pass.
But Balan rose on hands and knees
And crawled by childlike dim degrees
Up toward his brother, as a breeze
Creeps wingless over sluggard seas
When all the wind’s heart fails it: so
Beneath their mother’s eyes had he,
A babe that laughed with joy to be,
Made toward him standing by her knee
For love’s sake long ago.
Then, gathering strength up for a space,
From off his brother’s dying face
With dying hands that wrought apace
While death and life would grant them grace
He loosed his helm and knew not him,
So scored with blood it was, and hewn
Athwart with darkening wounds: but soon
Life strove and shuddered through the swoon
Wherein its light lay dim.
And sorrow set these chained words free:
“O Balan, O my brother! me
Thou hast slain, and I, my brother, thee
And now far hence, on shore and sea,
Shall all the wide world speak of us.”
“Alas,” said Balan, “that I might
Not know you, seeing two swords were dight
About you; now the unanswering sight
Hath here found answer thus.
“Because you bore another shield
Than yours, that even ere youth could wield
Like arms with manhood’s tried and steeled
Shone as my star of battle-field,
I deemed it surely might not be
My brother.” Then his brother spake
Fiercely: “Would God, for thy sole sake,
I had my life again, to take
Revenge for only thee!
“For all this deadly work was wrought
Of one false knight’s false word and thought,
Whose mortal craft and counsel caught
And snared my faith who doubted nought,
And made me put my shield away.
Ah, might I live, I would destroy
That castle for its customs: joy
There makes of grief a deadly toy,
And death makes night of day.”
“Well done were that, if aught were done
Well ever here beneath the sun,”
Said Balan: “better work were none:
For hither since I came and won
A woful honour born of death,
When here my hap it was to slay
A knight who kept this island way,
I might not pass by night or day
Hence, as this token saith.
“No more shouldst thou, for all the might
Of heart and hand that seals thee knight
Most noble of all that see the light,
Brother, hadst thou but slain in fight
Me, and arisen unscathed and whole,
As would to God thou hadst risen! though here
Light is as darkness, hope as fear,
And love as hate: and none draws near
Save toward a mortal goal.”
Then, fair as any poison-flower
Whose blossom blights the withering bower
Whereon its blasting breath has power,
Forth fared the lady of the tower
With many a lady and many a knight,
And came across the water-way
Even where on death’s dim border lay
Those brethren sent of her to slay
And die in kindless fight.
And all those hard light hearts were swayed
With pity passing like a shade
That stays not, and may be not stayed,
To hear the mutual moan they made,
Each to behold his brother die,
Saying, “Both we came out of one tomb,
One star-crossed mother’s woful womb,
And so within one grave-pit’s gloom
Untimely shall we lie.”
And Balan prayed, as God should bless
That lady for her gentleness,
That where the battle’s mortal stress
Had made for them perforce to press
The bed whence never man may rise
They twain, free now from hopes and fears,
Might sleep; and she, as one that hears,
Bowed her bright head: and very tears
Fell from her cold fierce eyes.
Then Balen prayed her send a priest
To housel them, that ere they ceased
The hansel of the heavenly feast
That fills with light from the answering east
The sunset of the life of man
Might bless them, and their lips be kissed
With death’s requickening eucharist,
And death’s and life’s dim sunlit mist
Pass as a stream that ran.
And so their dying rites were done:
And Balen, seeing the death-struck sun
Sink, spake as he whose goal is won:
“Now, when our trophied tomb is one,
And over us our tale is writ,
How two that loved each other, two
Born and begotten brethren, slew
Each other, none that reads anew
Shall choose but weep for it.
“And no good knight and no good man
Whose eye shall ever come to scan
The record of the imperious ban
That made our life so sad a span
Shall read or hear, who shall not pray
For us for ever.” Then anon
Died Balan; but the sun was gone,
And deep the stars of midnight shone,
Ere Balen passed away.
And there low lying, as hour on hour
Fled, all his life in all its flower
Came back as in a sunlit shower
Of dreams, when sweet-souled sleep has power
On life less sweet and glad to be.
He drank the draught of life’s first wine
Again: he saw the moorland shine,
The rioting rapids of the Tyne,
The woods, the cliffs, the sea.
The joy that lives at heart and home,
The joy to rest, the joy to roam,
The joy of crags and scaurs he clomb,
The rapture of the encountering foam
Embraced and breasted of the boy,
The first good steed his knees bestrode,
The first wild sound of songs that flowed
Through ears that thrilled and heart that glowed,
Fulfilled his death with joy.
So, dying not as a coward that dies
And dares not look in death’s dim eyes
Straight as the stars on seas and skies
Whence moon and sun recoil and rise,
He looked on life and death, and slept.
And there with morning Merlin came,
And on the tomb that told their fame
He wrote by Balan’s Balen’s name,
And gazed thereon, and wept.
For all his heart within him yearned
With pity like as fire that burned.
The fate his fateful eye discerned
Far off now dimmed it, ere he turned
His face toward Camelot, to tell
Arthur of all the storms that woke
Round Balen, and the dolorous stroke,
And how that last blind battle broke
The consummated spell.
“Alas,” King Arthur said, “this day
I have heard the worst that woe might say:
For in this world that wanes away
I know not two such knights as they.”
This is the tale that memory writes
Of men whose names like s
tars shall stand,
Balen and Balan, sure of hand,
Two brethren of Northumberland,
In life and death good knights.
A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS
By middle age Swinburne had become an alcoholic and an algolagniac, suffering greatly from his highly excitable character and bohemian lifestyle. His health deteriorated as a result and in 1879 he was taken into care by his friend Theodore Watts, a critic and poet, who looked after him for the rest of his life in his home The Pines at Putney Hill, London. From then on Swinburne managed to lose his image of youthful rebelliousness, developing instead as a figure of social respectability. In 1904 he published his last collection of poems in his lifetime, featuring a diverse range of verses, from personal pieces to contemporary comments and from memorial tributes to other writers to prologues for Swinburne’s poetic dramas. The collection also includes the beautiful poem The Lake of Gaube. Swinburne is best remembered as the supreme technician of his time in the use of poetic metre, with a versatility that was judged by many to exceed even Tennyson's art, though he was criticised for lacking a corresponding emotional range.
At the age of 72 and still under the care of his good friend Watts, Swinburne died at The Pines on 10 April, 1909, and was buried at St. Boniface Church, Bonchurch, on the Isle of Wight, in the dene where he spent his childhood years.
Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832-1914) was a critic and poet, now chiefly remembered for being the close friend and minder of Swinburne, whom he rescued from alcoholism.
CONTENTS
A CHANNEL PASSAGE
THE LAKE OF GAUBE
THE PROMISE OF THE HAWTHORN
HAWTHORN TIDE
THE PASSING OF THE HAWTHORN
TO A BABY KINSWOMAN
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
THE ALTAR OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
A NEW YEAR’S EVE
IN A ROSARY
THE HIGH OAKS
BARKING HALL: A YEAR AFTER
MUSIC: AN ODE
THE CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE
TRAFALGAR DAY
CROMWELL’S STATUE
A WORD FOR THE NAVY
NORTHUMBERLAND
STRATFORD-ON-AVON
BURNS: AN ODE
THE COMMONWEAL
THE QUESTION
APOSTASY
RUSSIA: AN ODE
FOR GREECE AND CRETE
DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO
A NEW CENTURY
AN EVENING AT VICHY
TO GEORGE FREDERICK WATTS
ON THE DEATH OF MRS. LYNN LINTON
IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI
CARNOT
AFTER THE VERDICT
THE TRANSVAAL
REVERSE
THE TURNING OF THE TIDE
ON THE DEATH OF COLONEL BENSON
ASTRÆA VICTRIX
THE FIRST OF JUNE
ROUNDEL FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLON
A ROUNDEL OF RABELAIS
LUCIFER
THE CENTENARY OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS
AT A DOG’S GRAVE
THREE WEEKS OLD
A CLASP OF HANDS
PROLOGUE TO DOCTOR FAUSTUS
PROLOGUE TO ARDEN OF FEVERSHAM
PROLOGUE TO OLD FORTUNATUS
PROLOGUE TO THE DUCHESS OF MALFY
PROLOGUE TO THE REVENGER’S TRAGEDY
PROLOGUE TO THE BROKEN HEART
PROLOGUE TO A VERY WOMAN
PROLOGUE TO THE SPANISH GIPSY
PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN
THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE
CLEOPATRA
DEDICATION
Swinburne, 1900
IN MEMORY
OF
WILLIAM MORRIS
AND
EDWARD BURNE JONES
A CHANNEL PASSAGE
1855
Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,
Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:
Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour
Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower.
Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the starbright air
Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.
Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?
Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.
Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky,
Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die.
Heaven’s own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire:
Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night’s desire.
And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free:
And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.
All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught:
And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught.
And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind:
And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind.
Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East,
Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death for priest.
The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man born free
Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a tropic sea.
As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall,
The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff’s wall.
Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath,
And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death.
Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy,
Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird’s heart in a boy.
For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime
As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time.
The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard,
The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word,
In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea,
And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free.
Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light
From the rims of the storm to the sea’s dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white.
The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade
From the cloud’s black base to the black wave’s brim rejoiced in the light they made.
Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune,
Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon.
The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep
As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep.
All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know
Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below.
The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea’s labour and rage,
Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.
No th
ought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare,
Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air —
Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and the sea’s,
Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men’s knees.
No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in dreams
Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath’s length seems —
One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love that subsides
As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and released the tides.
In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, assailed and withheld
As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is thwarted and quelled.
As the glories of myriads of glowworms in lustrous grass on a boundless lawn
Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn.
A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea,
And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a tune could be;
As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of life or of sleep,
Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep:
Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember awake:
Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs in the live storm’s wake,
In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of the labouring hour,
A harvest of stars by the storm’s hand reaped, each fair as a star-shaped flower.
And sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of tempest seemed
When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as a dream half dreamed.
The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a miracle, died,
Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride;
With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power upon earth,
As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new God’s birth,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 142
