Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon

by Algernon Swinburne

  Say, Venus hath no girl,

  No front of female curl,

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  Among her Loves.

  Thy sweet low bosom, thy close hair,

  Thy strait soft flanks and slenderer feet,

  Thy virginal strange air,

  Are these not over fair

  For Love to greet?

  How should he greet thee? what new name,

  Fit to move all men’s hearts, could move

  Thee, deaf to love or shame,

  Love’s sister, by the same

  40

  Mother as Love?

  Ah sweet, the maiden’s mouth is cold,

  Her breast-blossoms are simply red,

  Her hair mere brown or gold,

  Fold over simple fold

  Binding her head.

  Thy mouth is made of fire and wine,

  Thy barren bosom takes my kiss

  And turns my soul to thine

  And turns thy lip to mine,

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  And mine it is.

  Thou hast a serpent in thine hair,

  In all the curls that close and cling;

  And ah, thy breast-flower!

  Ah love, thy mouth too fair

  To kiss and sting!

  Cleave to me, love me, kiss mine eyes.

  Satiate thy lips with loving me;

  Nay, for thou shalt not rise;

  Lie still as Love that dies

  60

  For love of thee.

  Mine arms are close about thine head,

  My lips are fervent on thy face,

  And where my kiss hath fed

  Thy flower-like blood leaps red

  To the kissed place.

  O bitterness of things too sweet!

  O broken singing of the dove!

  Love’s wings are over fleet,

  And like the panther’s feet

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  The feet of Love.

  Rondel

  These many years since we began to be,

  What have the gods done with us? what with me,

  What with my love? they have shown me fates and fears,

  Harsh springs, and fountains bitterer than the sea,

  Grief a fixed star, and joy a vane that veers,

  These many years.

  With her, my love, with her have they done well?

  But who shall answer for her? who shall tell

  Sweet things or sad, such things as no man hears?

  10

  May no tears fall, if no tears ever fell,

  From eyes more dear to me than starriest spheres

  These many years!

  But if tears ever touched, for any grief,

  Those eyelids folded like a white-rose leaf,

  Deep double shells wherethrough the eye-flower peers,

  Let them weep once more only, sweet and brief,

  Brief tears and bright, for one who gave her tears

  These many years.

  Satia Te Sanguine

  If you loved me ever so little,

  I could bear the bonds that gall,

  I could dream the bonds were brittle;

  You do not love me at all.

  O beautiful lips, O bosom

  More white than the moon’s and warm,

  A sterile, a ruinous blossom

  Is blown your way in a storm.

  As the lost white feverish limbs

  10

  Of the Lesbian Sappho, adrift

  In foam where the sea-weed swims,

  Swam loose for the streams to lift,

  My heart swims blind in a sea

  That stuns me; swims to and fro,

  And gathers to windward and lee

  Lamentation, and mourning, and woe.

  A broken, an emptied boat,

  Sea saps it, winds blow apart,

  Sick and adrift and afloat,

  20

  The barren waif of a heart.

  Where, when the gods would be cruel,

  Do they go for a torture? where

  Plant thorns, set pain like a jewel?

  Ah, not in the flesh, not there!

  The racks of earth and the rods

  Are weak as foam on the sands;

  In the heart is the prey for gods,

  Who crucify hearts, not hands.

  Mere pangs corrode and consume,

  30

  Dead when life dies in the brain;

  In the infinite spirit is room

  For the pulse of an infinite pain.

  I wish you were dead, my dear;

  I would give you, had I to give,

  Some death too bitter to fear;

  It is better to die than live.

  I wish you were stricken of thunder

  And burnt with a bright flame through,

  Consumed and cloven in sunder,

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  I dead at your feet like you.

  If I could but know after all,

  I might cease to hunger and ache,

  Though your heart were ever so small,

  If it were not a stone or a snake.

  You are crueller, you that we love,

  Than hatred, hunger, or death;

  You have eyes and breasts like a dove,

  And you kill men’s hearts with a breath.

  As plague in a poisonous city

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  Insults and exults on her dead,

  So you, when pallid for pity

  Comes love, and fawns to be fed.

  As a tame beast writhes and wheedles,

  He fawns to be fed with wiles;

  You carve him a cross of needles,

  And whet them sharp as your smiles.

  He is patient of thorn and whip,

  He is dumb under axe or dart;

  You suck with a sleepy red lip

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  The wet red wounds in his heart.

  You thrill as his pulses dwindle,

  You brighten and warm as he bleeds,

  With insatiable eyes that kindle

  And insatiable mouth that feeds.

  Your hands nailed love to the tree,

  You stript him, scourged him with rods,

  And drowned him deep in the sea

  That hides the dead and their gods.

  And for all this, die will he not;

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  There is no man sees him but I;

  You came and went and forgot;

  I hope he will some day die.

  A Litany

  Anth. Sac.

  FIRST ANTIPHONE

  All the bright lights of heaven

  I will make dark over thee;

  One night shall be as seven

  That its skirts may cover thee;

  I will send on thy strong men a sword,

  On thy remnant a rod;

  Ye shall know that I am the Lord,

  Saith the Lord God.

  SECOND ANTIPHONE

  All the bright lights of heaven

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  Thou hast made dark over us;

  One night has been as seven

  That its skirt might cover us;

  Thou hast sent on our strong men a sword,

  On our remnant a rod;

  We know that thou art the Lord,

  O Lord our God.

  THIRD ANTIPHONE

  As the tresses and wings of the wind

  Are scattered and shaken,

  I will scatter all them that have sinned,

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  There shall none be taken;

  As a sower that scattereth seed,

  So will I scatter them;

  As one breaketh and shattereth a reed,

  I will break and shatter them.

  FOURTH ANTIPHONE

  As the wings and the locks of the wind

  Are scattered and shaken,

  Thou hast scattered all them that have sinned,

  There was no man taken;

  As a sower that scattereth seed,

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So hast thou scattered us;

  As one breaketh and shattereth a reed,

  Thou hast broken and shattered us.

  FIFTH ANTIPHONE

  From all thy lovers that love thee

  I God will sunder thee;

  I will make darkness above thee,

  And thick darkness under thee;

  Before me goeth a light,

  Behind me a sword;

  Shall a remnant find grace in my sight?

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  I am the Lord.

  SIXTH ANTIPHONE

  From all our lovers that love us

  Thou God didst sunder us;

  Thou madest darkness above us,

  And thick darkness under us;

  Thou hast kindled thy wrath for a light,

  And made ready thy sword;

  Let a remnant find grace in thy sight,

  We beseech thee, O Lord.

  SEVENTH ANTIPHONE

  Wilt thou bring fine gold for a payment

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  For sins on this wise?

  For the glittering of raiment

  And the shining of eyes,

  For the painting of faces

  And the sundering of trust,

  For the sins of thine high places

  And delight of thy lust?

  For your high things ye shall have lowly,

  Lamentation for song;

  For, behold, I God am holy,

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  I the Lord am strong;

  Ye shall seek me and shall not reach me

  Till the wine-press be trod;

  In that hour ye shall turn and beseech me,

  Saith the Lord God.

  EIGHTH ANTIPHONE

  Not with fine gold for a payment,

  But with coin of sighs,

  But with rending of raiment

  And with weeping of eyes,

  But with shame of stricken faces

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  And with strewing of dust,

  For the sin of stately places

  And lordship of lust;

  With voices of men made lowly,

  Made empty of song,

  O Lord God most holy,

  O God most strong,

  We reach out hands to reach thee

  Ere the wine-press be trod;

  We beseech thee, O Lord, we beseech thee,

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  O Lord our God.

  NINTH ANTIPHONE

  In that hour thou shalt say to the night,

  Come down and cover us;

  To the cloud on thy left and thy right,

  Be thou spread over us;

  A snare shall be as thy mother,

  And a curse thy bride;

  Thou shalt put her away, and another

  Shall lie by thy side.

  Thou shalt neither rise up by day

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  Nor lie down by night;

  Would God it were dark! thou shalt say;

  Would God it were light!

  And the sight of thine eyes shall be made

  As the burning of fire;

  And thy soul shall be sorely afraid

  For thy soul’s desire.

  Ye whom your lords loved well,

  Putting silver and gold on you,

  The inevitable hell

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  Shall surely take hold on you;

  Your gold shall be for a token,

  Your staff for a rod;

  With the breaking of bands ye are broken,

  Saith the Lord God.

  TENTH ANTIPHONE

  In our sorrow we said to the night,

  Fall down and cover us;

  To the darkness at left and at right,

  Be thou shed over us;

  We had breaking of spirit to mother

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  And cursing to bride;

  And one was slain, and another

  Stood up at our side.

  We could not arise by day,

  Nor lie down by night;

  Thy sword was sharp in our way,

  Thy word in our sight;

  The delight of our eyelids was made

  As the burning of fire;

  And our souls became sorely afraid

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  For our soul’s desire.

  We whom the world loved well,

  Laying silver and gold on us,

  The kingdom of death and of hell

  Riseth up to take hold on us;

  Our gold is turned to a token,

  Our staff to a rod;

  Yet shalt thou bind them up that were broken,

  O Lord our God.

  A Lamentation

  I

  Who hath known the ways of time

  Or trodden behind his feet?

  There is no such man among men.

  For chance overcomes him, or crime

  Changes; for all things sweet

  In time wax bitter again.

  Who shall give sorrow enough,

  Or who the abundance of tears?

  Mine eyes are heavy with love

  10

  And a sword gone thorough mine ears,

  A sound like a sword and fire,

  For pity, for great desire;

  Who shall ensure me thereof,

  Lest I die, being full of my fears?

  Who hath known the ways and the wrath,

  The sleepless spirit, the root

  And blossom of evil will,

  The divine device of a god?

  Who shall behold it or hath?

  20

  The twice-tongued prophets are mute,

  The many speakers are still;

  No foot has travelled or trod,

  No hand has meted, his path.

  Man’s fate is a blood-red fruit,

  And the mighty gods have their fill

  And relax not the rein, or the rod.

  Ye were mighty in heart from of old,

  Ye slew with the spear, and are slain.

  Keen after heat is the cold,

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  Sore after summer is rain,

  And melteth man to the bone.

  As water he weareth away,

  As a flower, as an hour in a day,

  Fallen from laughter to moan.

  But my spirit is shaken with fear

  Lest an evil thing begin,

  New-born, a spear for a spear,

  And one for another sin.