Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon

by Algernon Swinburne

  Soft linen dyed upon the fold,

  Split spice and cores of scented gold,

  Cedar and broken calamus.

  SEMIRAMIS

  I am the queen Semiramis.

  The whole world and the sea that is

  In fashion like a chrysopras,

  The noise of all men labouring,

  The priest’s mouth tired through thanksgiving,

  The sound of love in the blood’s pause,

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  The strength of love in the blood’s beat,

  All these were cast beneath my feet

  And all found lesser than I was.

  HESIONE

  I am the queen Hesione.

  The seasons that increased in me

  Made my face fairer than all men’s.

  I had the summer in my hair;

  And all the pale gold autumn air

  Was as the habit of my sense.

  My body was as fire that shone;

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  God’s beauty that makes all things one

  Was one among my handmaidens.

  CHRYSOTHEMIS

  I am the queen of Samothrace.

  God, making roses, made my face

  As a rose filled up full with red.

  My prows made sharp the straitened seas

  From Pontus to that Chersonese

  Whereon the ebbed Asian stream is shed.

  My hair was as sweet scent that drips;

  Love’s breath begun about my lips

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  Kindled the lips of people dead.

  THOMYRIS

  I am the queen of Scythians.

  My strength was like no strength of man’s,

  My face like day, my breast like spring.

  My fame was felt in the extreme land

  That hath sunshine on the one hand

  And on the other star-shining.

  Yea, and the wind there fails of breath;

  Yea, and there life is waste like death;

  Yea, and there death is a glad thing.

  HARHAS

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  I am the queen of Anakim.

  In the spent years whose speech is dim,

  Whose raiment is the dust and death,

  My stately body without stain

  Shone as the shining race of rain

  Whose hair a great wind scattereth.

  Now hath God turned my lips to sighs,

  Plucked off mine eyelids from mine eyes,

  And sealed with seals my way of breath.

  MYRRHA

  I am the queen Arabian.

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  The tears wherewith mine eyelids ran

  Smelt like my perfumed eyelids’ smell.

  A harsh thirst made my soft mouth hard,

  That ached with kisses afterward;

  My brain rang like a beaten bell.

  As tears on eyes, as fire on wood,

  Sin fed upon my breath and blood,

  Sin made my breasts subside and swell.

  PASIPHAE

  I am the queen Pasiphae.

  Not all the pure clean-coloured sea

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  Could cleanse or cool my yearning veins;

  Nor any root nor herb that grew,

  Flag-leaves that let green water through,

  Nor washing of the dews and rains.

  From shame’s pressed core I wrung the sweet

  Fruit’s savour that was death to eat,

  Whereof no seed but death remains.

  SAPPHO

  I am the queen of Lesbians.

  My love, that had no part in man’s,

  Was sweeter than all shape of sweet.

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  The intolerable infinite desire

  Made my face pale like faded fire

  When the ashen pyre falls through with heat.

  My blood was hot wan wine of love,

  And my song’s sound the sound thereof,

  The sound of the delight of it.

  MESSALINA

  I am the queen of Italy.

  These were the signs God set on me;

  A barren beauty subtle and sleek,

  Curled carven hair, and cheeks worn wan

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  With fierce false lips of many a man,

  Large temples where the blood ran weak,

  A mouth athirst and amorous

  And hungering as the grave’s mouth does

  That, being an-hungred, cannot speak.

  AMESTRIS

  I am the queen of Persians.

  My breasts were lordlier than bright swans,

  My body as amber fair and thin.

  Strange flesh was given my lips for bread,

  With poisonous hours my days were fed,

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  And my feet shod with adder-skin.

  In Shushan toward Ecbatane

  I wrought my joys with tears and pain,

  My loves with blood and bitter sin.

  EPHRATH

  I am the queen of Rephaim.

  God, that some while refraineth him,

  Made in the end a spoil of me.

  My rumour was upon the world

  As strong sound of swoln water hurled

  Through porches of the straining sea.

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  My hair was like the flag-flower,

  And my breasts carven goodlier

  Than beryl with chalcedony.

  PASITHEA

  I am the queen of Cypriotes.

  Mine oarsmen, labouring with brown throats,

  Sang of me many a tender thing.

  My maidens, girdled loose and braced

  With gold from bosom to white waist,

  Praised me between their wool-combing.

  All that praise Venus all night long

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  With lips like speech and lids like song

  Praised me till song lost heart to sing.

  ALACIEL

  I am the queen Alaciel.

  My mouth was like that moist gold cell

  Whereout the thickest honey drips.

  Mine eyes were as a grey-green sea;

  The amorous blood that smote on me

  Smote to my feet and finger-tips.

  My throat was whiter than the dove,

  Mine eyelids as the seals of love,

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  And as the doors of love my lips.

  ERIGONE

  I am the queen Erigone.

  The wild wine shed as blood on me

  Made my face brighter than a bride’s.

  My large lips had the old thirst of earth,

  Mine arms the might of the old sea’s girth

  Bound round the whole world’s iron sides.

  Within mine eyes and in mine ears

  Were music and the wine of tears,

  And light, and thunder of the tides.

  Et hìc exeant, et dicat Bersabe regina;

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  Alas, God, for thy great pity

  And for the might that is in thee,

  Behold, I woful Bersabe

  Cry out with stoopings of my knee

  And thy wrath laid and bound on me

  Till I may see thy love.

  Behold, Lord, this child is grown

  Within me between bone and bone

  To make me mother of a son,

  Made of my body with strong moan;

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  There shall not be another one

  That shall be made hereof.

  KING DAVID

  Lord God, alas, what shall I sain?

  Lo, thou art as an hundred men

  Both to break and build again:

  The wild ways thou makest plain,

  Thine hands hold the hail and rain,

  And thy fingers both grape and grain;

  Of their largess we be all well fain,

  And of their great pity:

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  The sun thou madest of good gold,

  Of clean silver the moon cold,

  All the
great stars thou hast told

  As thy cattle in thy fold

  Every one by his name of old;

  Wind and water thou hast in hold,

  Both the land and the long sea;

  Both the green sea and the land,

  Lord God, thou hast in hand,

  Both white water and grey sand;

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  Upon thy right or thy left hand

  There is no man that may stand;

  Lord, thou rue on me.

  O wise Lord, if thou be keen

  To note things amiss that been,

  I am not worth a shell of bean

  More than an old mare meagre and lean;

  For all my wrong-doing with my queen,

  It grew not of our heartès clean,

  But it began of her body.

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  For it fell in the hot May

  I stood within a paven way

  Built of fair bright stone, perfay,

  That is as fire of night and day

  And lighteth all my house.

  Therein be neither stones nor sticks,

  Neither red nor white bricks,

  But for cubits five or six

  There is most goodly sardonyx

  And amber laid in rows.

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  It goes round about my roofs,

  (If ye list ye shall have proofs)

  There is good space for horse and hoofs,

  Plain and nothing perilous.

  For the fair green weather’s heat,

  And for the smell of leavès sweet,

  It is no marvel, well ye weet,

  A man to waxen amorous.

  This I say now by my case

  That spied forth of that royal place,

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  There I saw in no great space

  Mine own sweet, both body and face,

  Under the fresh boughs.

  In a water that was there

  She wesshe her goodly body bare

  And dried it with her owen hair:

  Both her arms and her knees fair,

  Both bosom and brows;

  Both shoulders and eke thighs

  Tho she wesshe upon this wise;

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  Ever she sighed with little sighs,

  And ever she gave God thank.

  Yea, God wot I can well see yet

  Both her breast and her sides all wet

  And her long hair withouten let

  Spread sideways like a drawing net;

  Full dear bought and full far fet

  Was that sweet thing there y-set;

  It were a hard thing to forget

  How both lips and eyen met,

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  Breast and breath sank.

  So goodly a sight as there she was,

  Lying looking on her glass

  By wan water in green grass,

  Yet saw never man.

  So soft and great she was and bright

  With all her body waxen white,

  I woxe nigh blind to see the light

  Shed out of it to left and right;

  This bitter sin from that sweet sight

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  Between us twain began.

  NATHAN

  Now, sir, be merry anon,

  For ye shall have a full wise son,

  Goodly and great of flesh and bone;

  There shall no king be such an one,

  I swear by Godis rood.

  Therefore, lord, be merry here,

  And go to meat withouten fear,

  And hear a mass with goodly cheer;

  For to all folk ye shall be dear,

  And all folk of your blood.

  Et tunc dicant Laudamus.

  St. Dorothy

  It hath been seen and yet it shall be seen

  That out of tender mouths God’s praise hath been

  Made perfect, and with wood and simple string

  He hath played music sweet as shawm-playing

  To please himself with softness of all sound;

  And no small thing but hath been sometime found

  Full sweet of use, and no such humbleness

  But God hath bruised withal the sentences

  And evidence of wise men witnessing;

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  No leaf that is so soft a hidden thing

  It never shall get sight of the great sun;

  The strength of ten has been the strength of one,

  And lowliness has waxed imperious.

  There was in Rome a man Theophilus

  Of right great blood and gracious ways, that had

  All noble fashions to make people glad

  And a soft life of pleasurable days;

  He was a goodly man for one to praise,

  Flawless and whole upward from foot to head;

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  His arms were a red hawk that alway fed

  On a small bird with feathers gnawed upon,

  Beaten and plucked about the bosom-bone

  Whereby a small round fleck like fire there was:

  They called it in their tongue lampadias;

  This was the banner of the lordly man.

  In many straits of sea and reaches wan

  Full of quick wind, and many a shaken firth,

  It had seen fighting days of either earth,

  Westward or east of waters Gaditane

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  (This was the place of sea-rocks under Spain

  Called after the great praise of Hercules)

  And north beyond the washing Pontic seas,

  Far windy Russian places fabulous,

  And salt fierce tides of storm-swoln Bosphorus.

  Now as this lord came straying in Rome town

  He saw a little lattice open down

  And after it a press of maidens’ heads

  That sat upon their cold small quiet beds

  Talking, and played upon short-stringèd lutes;

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  And other some ground perfume out of roots

  Gathered by marvellous moons in Asia;

  Saffron and aloes and wild cassia,

  Coloured all through and smelling of the sun;

  And over all these was a certain one

  Clothed softly, with sweet herbs, about her hair

  And bosom flowerful; her face more fair

  Than sudden-singing April in soft lands:

  Eyed like a gracious bird, and in both hands

  She held a psalter painted green and red.

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  This Theophile laughed at the heart, and said,

  Now God so help me hither and St. Paul,

  As by the new time of their festival