And, as in meadows where the strong flame feeds,
The land is waste and eaten to the bone
In fields of dust with ashes overblown
To where the river trembles in its reeds,
So are the churches and broad halls burnt up;
The priests and princes gathered into sheaves
And bound for burning; such a fire begins
The melting of gold pieces and gold sins,
Ill treasure-traffic, the market-place of thieves,
For whose sake God shall pour out all his cup.
Oxford.
ECHO
IN the dusk of starlit hours
Thro’ the woodland’s dewy maze
Scattering music, scattering flowers
Down the glimmering forest ways.
O’er the smooth moss-paven level,
Past the mountain’s windy brow,
Come the Nymphs in crowded revel,
Calling, Echo, Echo! where art thou?
By the far and misty glimmer
Of these pale Lethean lakes,
Whose dusk waves in twilight shimmer
When the faint Sun on them breaks,
Where no sorrowing thoughts appal thee,
Hast thou sought a place of sleep
Heeding not how loud we call thee —
Echo, Echo! — thro’ the woodlands deep?
We have sought thee till the Hours,
Slowly darkening to the west,
Left thee turning funeral flowers
In some haunt of dreary rest,
Where the cloud of dewy tresses
On thy wan and downcast brow
Like a weight of sorrow presses;
Call aloud, Echo! Echo! where art thou?
In the soft green summer-meadows
Where the silent streams are flowing
In the happy woodland shadows
Where the softest winds are blowing,
Where amid their heapèd flowers
Children call thee soft and low,
In the hush of golden hours
Singing, Echo, Echo! where art thou?
When the wind-vext earth returneth
To the light of stormless days,
And the wide noon-splendour bumeth
On the lustrous ocean-ways,
Still thou sittest weeping lowly
In the dim heart of the brakes,
In the silence wide and holy —
Echo, Echo! — which the deep wood makes.
Echo, Echo! we are weary
And the forest-path is long,
And the brightest glades are dreary
If unwaken’d by thy song.
Hark! her voice afar is singing —
O our sister, where art thou?
All the joyous words are ringing;
Be with us, Echo! Echo! hear us now.
Oxford.
DIES IRÆ
DAY of wrath, the years are keeping,
When the world shall rise from sleeping,
With a clamour of great weeping I
Earth shall fear and tremble greatly
To behold the advent stately
Of the Judge that judgeth straitly.
And the trumpet’s fierce impatience
Scatter strange reverberations
Thro’ the graves of buried nations.
Death and Nature will stand stricken
When the hollow bones shall quicken
And the air with weeping thicken.
When the Creature, sorrow-smitten,
Rises where the Judge is sitting
And beholds the doom-book written.
For, that so his wrath be slakèd,
All things sleeping shall be wakèd,
All things hidden shall be naked.
When the just are troubled for thee,
Who shall plead for me before thee,
Who shall stand up to implore thee?
Lest my great sin overthrow me,
Let thy mercy, quickened thro’ me,
As a fountain overflow me!
For my sake thy soul was movèd;
For my sake thy name reprovèd,
Lose me not whom thou hast lovèd!
Yea, when shame and pain were sorest,
For my love the cross thou borest,
For my love the thorn-plait worest
By that pain that overbore thee,
By those tears thou weptest for me,
Leave me strength to stand before thee.
For the heart within me yearneth,
And for sin my whole face burneth;
Spare me when thy day returneth.
By the Magdalen forgiven,
By the thief made pure for heaven,
Even to me thy hope was given.
Tho’ great shame be heavy on me,
Grant thou, Lord, whose mercy won me,
That hell take not hold upon me.
Thou whom I have lovèd solely,
Thou whom I have lovèd wholly,
Leave me place among the holy!
When thy sharp wrath burns like fire,
With the chosen of thy desire,
Call me to the crownèd choir!
Prayer, like flame with ashes blending,
From my crushed heart burns ascending;
Have thou care for my last ending.
Oxford.
AUTUMN RONDEL
FROM spring to fall the year makes merry
With days to days that chant and call:
With hopes to crown and fears to bury
With crowns of flowers and flowers for pall,
With bloom and song and bird and berry
That fill the months with festival
From spring to fall.
Who knows if ever skies were dreary
With shower and cloud and waterfall?
While yet the world’s good heart is cheery,
Who knows if rains will ever brawl?
The storm thinks long, the winds wax weary,
Till winter comes to wind up all
From spring to fall.
A CAROL FOR CHARITY
WINTER, friend of health and wealth,
Hailed of goodly girls and boys,
Slays the poor by strength and stealth,
Makes their lives his lifeless toys.
One boy goes galloping over the moorland,
Wild with delight of the sunshine and speed,
Blithe as a bird on his bleak bright foreland,
Glad as the wind or his own glad steed.
One, with darkness and toil fast bound,
Bound in misery and iron fast,
Drags his nakedness underground,
Sees the mine as the world at last.
Winter, lord of laughing Yule,
Winter, weeping on his dead,
Bids us ease his iron rule,
Bids us bring his poor men bread.
A SONG FOR MARGARET MIDHURST
GOD send the sea sorrow
And all men that sail thorough.
God give the wild sea woe,
And all ships that therein go.
My love went out with dawn’s light;
He went down ere it was night
God give no live man good
That sails over the sea’s flood.
God give all live men teen
That sail over the waves green.
God send for my love’s sake
All their lovers’ hearts break.
Many sails went over sea;
One took my heart from me.
All they, saving one,
Came in landward under the sun.
Many sails stood in from sea;
One twinned my heart and me.
Waves white and waves black,
One sail they sent not back.
Many maidens laughed that tide;
I fell down and sore sighed.
Many mouths I saw kiss;
No man kissed there mine, I wis.
Many gat there b
rooch and glove;
I gat but loss of love.
I rose and sighed sore;
I set my face from the shore.
On my fingers fair gold rings,
In my heart bitter things.
In mine hair combs of pride,
I stood up and sore sighed.
I looked out over sea;
Never a man’s eye looked to me.
I cried out over the tide;
Never a man’s mouth on me cried.
I came there a goodly thing;
I was full wan ere evening.
I came there fresh and red;
I came thence like one dead.
I came there glad and lief;
I came thence with heart’s grief.
God give all men grief, I say,
That sail over the seas grey.
I laid my head to the sea-stone;
I made my bed there alone.
I made my bed into the sand,
Betwixen sea and green land.
Betwixen land and green sea
Sorrows and sorrows fell on me.
In yellow sea-sand washen well,
Weary watches on me fell.
There all a night I lay:
I would I had died ere day.
There in the young light
I looked over the waves white.
There all a day I stood
Looking over the sea’s flood.
I saw waves black and green,
But no man’s sail between.
I saw waves blue and white,
But no sails under the light
There was no wind passed me by,
But I was like to die.
I sought long and I sought sore,
And aye my tears fell more.
I found sorrow and much pain,
But not my lover again.
God gave me a green bed
And no pillow to my head.
God gave me brief life’s breath
And a good sleep after death.
LOVE AND SLEEP
I
LET me forget a little space,
O love, let love forget I
Or, if love will not let,
Blind thou with hair and hands his eyes and face;
Blind him and bind him, memory, tho’ he fret,
And weep, and shift his place.
Thou seest how well the old loves sleep,
Each in a small sweet bed,
With flowers at foot and head,
Made out of griefs not grown enough to weep,
And joys so young their lips are hardly red,
And their hearts hardly leap.
Watch lest they wake, sweet Memory; set
A seal upon thy breath,
As one that sorroweth;
And hide thine eyes, and thou too shalt forget;
And sleep shall lead love by the hand to death,
And life be quiet yet
II
HIDE thine eyes for all their light,
Lest they come to weep;
Who shall say if day or night
Be the best for sleep?
If by day they wake,
Sorrow surely shall they see;
And for sorrow’s sake
Joyless all their joy shall be.
Sun shall set and moon shall rise
Till the end of years,
But by night were never eyes
Watched and shed not tears.
Look not forth to find
Where thou never shalt find rest,
Lest thine eyes wax blind,
Love is good, but sleep is best
EVENING BY THE SEA
IT was between the night and day,
The trees looked weary — one by one
Against the west they seemed to sway,
And yet were steady. The sad sun
In a sick doubt of colour lay
Across the water’s belt of dun.
On the weak wind scarce flakes of foam
There floated, hardly borne at all
From the rent edge of water — some
Between slack gusts the wind let fall,
The white brine could not overcome
That pale grass on the southern wall.
That evening one could always hear
The sharp hiss of the shingle, rent
As each wave settled heavier,
The same rough way. This noise was blent
With many sounds that hurt the air
As the salt sea-wind came and went
The wind wailed once and was not. Then
The white sea touching its salt edge
Dropped in a slow low sigh: again
The ripples deepened to the ledge,
Across the beach from marsh and fen
Came a faint smell of rotten sedge.
Like a hurt thing that will not die
The sea lay moaning; waifs of weed
Strove thro’ the water painfully
Or lay flat, like drenched hair indeed,
Rolled over with the pebbles, nigh
Low places where the rock-fish feed.
SONG FOR CHASTELARD
THOUGH ye be never so fair a May
As Queen Marie that is so sweet,
I am so bounden in love’s way
I may not go upon my feet
Though ye be never so true a thing
As Saint Marie that is so clean,
Yet I am so taken in your loving
I wis ye be the better queen.
Though I be never so good in face
As Absalom that was callèd fair,
Give me so much of your least grace
As I may kiss your neck and hair.
Though I be never so wise a king
As Solomon that woned out south,
Do so much for me, good sweeting,
As I may kiss upon your mouth.
KING BAN
A FRAGMENT
These three held flight upon the leaning lands
At undern, past the skirt of misty camps
Sewn thick from Benwick to the outer march —
King Ban, and, riding wrist by wrist, Ellayne,
And caught up with this coloured swathing-bands
Across her arm, a hindrance in the reins,
A bauble slipt between the bridle-ties,
The three months’ trouble that was Launcelot.
For Claudas leant upon the land, and smote
This way and that way, as a pestilence
Moves with vague patience in the unclean heat
This way and that way; so the Gaulish war
Smote, moving in the marches. Then King Ban
Shut in one girdled waist of narrow stones
His gold and all his men, and set on them
A name, the name of perfect men at need,
And over them a seneschal, the man
Most inward and entailed upon his soul,
That next his will and in his pulses moved
As the close blood and purpose of his heart,
And laid the place between his hands, and rode
North to the wild rims of distempered sea
That, crossed to Logres, his face might look
red [SIC]
The face of Arthur, and therein light blood
Even to the eyes and to the circled hair
For shame of failure in so near a need,
Failure in service of so near a man.
Because that time King Arthur would not ride,
But lay and let his hands weaken to white
Among the stray gold of a lady’s head.
His hands unwedded: neither could bring help
To Ban that helped to rend his land for him
From the steel wrist of spoilers, but the time
A sleep like yellow mould had overgrown,
A pleasure sweet and sick as marsh-flowers.
Therefore about his marches rode King Ban
With eyes that fell between his hands
to count
The golden inches of the saddle-rim,
Strange with rare stones; and in his face there
rose
A doubt that burnt it with red pain and fear
All over it, and plucked upon his heart,
The old weak heart that loss had eaten through,
Remembering how the seneschal went back
At coming out from Claudas in his tent;
And how they bound together, chin by chin,
Whispered and wagged, and made lean room for
words,
And a sharp mutter fed the ears of them.
And he went in and set no thought thereon
To waste; fear had not heart to fear indeed,
The king being old, since any fear in such
Is as a wound upon the fleshly sense
That drains a parcel of his time thereout,
Therefore he would not fear that as it fell
This thing should fall. For Claudas the keen thief
For some thin rounds and wretched stamps of gold
Had bought the tower and men and seneschal,
Body and breath and blood, yea, soul and shame.
They knew not this, at halt upon a hill.
Only surmise was dull upon the sense
And thin conjecture sickened in the speech;
So they fell silent, riding in the hills.
There on a little terrace the good king
Reined, and looked out. Far back the white lands lay;
The wind went in them like a broken man,
Lamely; the mist had set a bitter lip
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 162
