Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon

by Algernon Swinburne

  A great one, let this red mark witness you

  Under the left breast; and the stroke thereof

  So clove my sense that I woke out of love

  And knew not what this dream was nor had wit;

  But now God knows if I have skill of it.’

  Hereat she laid one palm against her lips

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  To stop their trembling; as when water slips

  Out of a beak-mouthed vessel with faint noise

  And chuckles in the narrowed throat and cloys

  The carven rims with murmuring, so came

  Words in her lips with no word right of them,

  A beaten speech thick and disconsolate,

  Till his smile ceasing waxed compassionate

  Of her sore fear that grew from anything –

  The sound of the strong summer thickening

  In heated leaves of the smooth apple-trees:

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  The day’s breath felt about the ash-branches,

  And noises of the noon whose weight still grew

  On the hot heavy-headed flowers, and drew

  Their red mouths open till the rose-heart ached;

  For eastward all the crowding rose was slaked

  And soothed with shade: but westward all its growth

  Seemed to breathe hard with heat as a man doth

  Who feels his temples newly feverous.

  And even with such motion in her brows

  As that man hath in whom sick days begin,

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  She turned her throat and spake, her voice being thin

  As a sick man’s, sudden and tremulous;

  ‘Sweet, if this end be come indeed on us,

  Let us love more;’ and held his mouth with hers.

  As the first sound of flooded hill-waters

  Is heard by people of the meadow-grass,

  Or ever a wandering waif of ruin pass

  With whirling stones and foam of the brown stream

  Flaked with fierce yellow: so beholding him

  She felt before tears came her eyelids wet,

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  Saw the face deadly thin where life was yet,

  Heard his throat’s harsh last moan before it clomb:

  And he, with close mouth passionate and dumb,

  Burned at her lips: so lay they without speech,

  Each grasping other, and the eyes of each

  Fed in the other’s face: till suddenly

  He cried out with a little broken cry

  This word, ‘O help me, sweet, I am but dead.’

  And even so saying, the colour of fair red

  Was gone out of his face, and his blood’s beat

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  Fell, and stark death made sharp his upward feet

  And pointed hands; and without moan he died.

  Pain smote her sudden in the brows and side,

  Strained her lips open and made burn her eyes:

  For the pure sharpness of her miseries

  She had no heart’s pain, but mere body’s wrack;

  But at the last her beaten blood drew back

  Slowly upon her face, and her stunned brows

  Suddenly grown aware and piteous

  Gathered themselves, her eyes shone, her hard breath

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  Came as though one nigh dead came back from death;

  Her lips throbbed, and life trembled through her hair.

  And in brief while she thought to bury there

  The dead man that her love might lie with him

  In a sweet bed under the rose-roots dim

  And soft earth round the branchèd apple-trees,

  Full of hushed heat and heavy with great ease,

  And no man entering divide him thence.

  Wherefore she bade one of her handmaidens

  To be her help to do upon this wise.

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  And saying so the tears out of her eyes

  Fell without noise and comforted her heart:

  Yea, her great pain eased of the sorest part

  Began to soften in her sense of it.

  There under all the little branches sweet

  The place was shapen of his burial;

  They shed thereon no thing funereal,

  But coloured leaves of latter rose-blossom,

  Stems of soft-grass, some withered red and some

  Fair and fresh-blooded; and spoil splendider

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  Of marigold and great spent sunflower.

  And afterward she came back without word

  To her own house; two days went, and the third

  Went, and she showed her father of this thing.

  And for great grief of her soul’s travailing

  He gave consent she should endure in peace

  Till her life’s end; yea, till her time should cease,

  She should abide in fellowship of pain.

  And having lived a holy year or twain

  She died of pure waste heart and weariness.

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  And for love’s honour in her love’s distress

  This word was written over her tomb’s head;

  ‘Here dead she lieth, for whose sake Love is dead.’

  Aholibah

  In the beginning God made thee

  A woman well to look upon,

  Thy tender body as a tree

  Whereon cool wind hath always blown

  Till the clean branches be well grown.

  There was none like thee in the land;

  The girls that were thy bondwomen

  Did bind thee with a purple band

  Upon thy forehead, that all men

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  Should know thee for God’s handmaiden.

  Strange raiment clad thee like a bride,

  With silk to wear on hands and feet

  And plates of gold on either side:

  Wine made thee glad, and thou didst eat

  Honey, and choice of pleasant meat.

  And fishers in the middle sea

  Did get thee sea-fish and sea-weeds

  In colour like the robes on thee;

  And curious work of plaited reeds,

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  And wools wherein live purple bleeds.

  And round the edges of thy cup

  Men wrought thee marvels out of gold,

  Strong snakes with lean throats lifted up,

  Large eyes whereon the brows had hold,

  And scaly things their slime kept cold.

  For thee they blew soft wind in flutes

  And ground sweet roots for cunning scent;

  Made slow because of many lutes,

  The wind among thy chambers went

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  Wherein no light was violent.

  God called thy name Aholibah,

  His tabernacle being in thee,

  A witness through waste Asia;

  Thou wert a tent sewn cunningly

  With gold and colours of the sea.

  God gave thee gracious ministers

  And all their work who plait and weave:

  The cunning of embroiderers

  That sew the pillow to the sleeve,

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  And likeness of all things that live.

  Thy garments upon thee were fair

  With scarlet and with yellow thread;

  Also the weaving of thine hair

  Was as fine gold upon thy head,

  And thy silk shoes were sewn with red.

  All sweet things he bade sift, and ground

  As a man grindeth wheat in mills

  With strong wheels alway going round;

  He gave thee corn, and grass that fills

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  The cattle on a thousand hills.

  The wine of many seasons fed

  Thy mouth, and made it fair and clean;

  Sweet oil was poured out on thy head

  And ran down like cool rain between

  The strait close locks it melted in.

  The s
trong men and the captains knew

  Thy chambers wrought and fashioned

  With gold and covering of blue,

  And the blue raiment of thine head

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  Who satest on a stately bed.

  All these had on their garments wrought

  The shape of beasts and creeping things,

  The body that availeth not,

  Flat backs of worms and veinèd wings,

  And the lewd bulk that sleeps and stings.

  Also the chosen of the years,

  The multitude being at ease,

  With sackbuts and with dulcimers

  And noise of shawms and psalteries

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  Made mirth within the ears of these.

  But as a common woman doth,

  Thou didst think evil and devise;

  The sweet smell of thy breast and mouth

  Thou madest as the harlot’s wise,

  And there was painting on thine eyes.

  Yea, in the woven guest-chamber

  And by the painted passages

  Where the strange gracious paintings were,

  State upon state of companies,

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  There came on thee the lust of these.

  Because of shapes on either wall

  Sea-coloured from some rare blue shell

  At many a Tyrian interval,

  Horsemen on horses, girdled well,

  Delicate and desirable,

  Thou saidest: I am sick of love:

  Stay me with flagons, comfort me

  With apples for my pain thereof

  Till my hands gather in his tree

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  That fruit wherein my lips would be.

  Yea, saidest thou, I will go up

  When there is no more shade than one

  May cover with a hollow cup,

  And make my bed against the sun

  Till my blood’s violence be done.

  Thy mouth was leant upon the wall

  Against the painted mouth, thy chin

  Touched the hair’s painted curve and fall;

  Thy deep throat, fallen lax and thin,

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  Worked as the blood’s beat worked therein.

  Therefore, O thou Aholibah,

  God is not glad because of thee;

  And thy fine gold shall pass away

  Like those fair coins of ore that be

  Washed over by the middle sea.

  Then will one make thy body bare

  To strip it of all gracious things,

  And pluck the cover from thine hair,

  And break the gift of many kings,

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  Thy wrist-rings and thine ankle-rings.

  Likewise the man whose body joins

  To thy smooth body, as was said,

  Who hath a girdle on his loins

  And dyed attire upon his head –

  The same who, seeing, worshipped,

  Because thy face was like the face

  Of a clean maiden that smells sweet,

  Because thy gait was as the pace

  Of one that opens not her feet

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  And is not heard within the street –

  Even he, O thou Aholibah,

  Made separate from thy desire,

  Shall cut thy nose and ears away

  And bruise thee for thy body’s hire

  And burn the residue with fire.

  Then shall the heathen people say,

  The multitude being at ease;

  Lo, this is that Aholibah

  Whose name was blown among strange seas,

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  Grown old with soft adulteries.

  Also her bed was made of green,

  Her windows beautiful for glass

  That she had made her bed between:

  Yea, for pure lust her body was

  Made like white summer-coloured grass.

  Her raiment was a strong man’s spoil;

  Upon a table by a bed

  She set mine incense and mine oil

  To be the beauty of her head

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  In chambers walled about with red.

  Also between the walls she had

  Fair faces of strong men portrayed;

  All girded round the loins, and clad

  With several cloths of woven braid

  And garments marvellously made.

  Therefore the wrath of God shall be

  Set as a watch upon her way;

  And whoso findeth by the sea

  Blown dust of bones will hardly say

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  If this were that Aholibah.

  Love and Sleep

  Lying asleep between the strokes of night

  I saw my love lean over my sad bed,

  Pale as the duskiest lily’s leaf or head,

  Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,

  Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,

  But perfect-coloured without white or red.

  And her lips opened amorously, and said –

  I wist not what, saving one word – Delight.

  And all her face was honey to my mouth,

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  And all her body pasture to mine eyes;

  The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,

  The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,

  The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs

  And glittering eyelids of my soul’s desire.

  Madonna Mia

  Under green apple-boughs

  That never a storm will rouse,

  My lady hath her house

  Between two bowers;

  In either of the twain

  Red roses full of rain;

  She hath for bondwomen

  All kind of flowers.

  She hath no handmaid fair

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  To draw her curled gold hair

  Through rings of gold that bear

  Her whole hair’s weight;

  She hath no maids to stand

  Gold-clothed on either hand;

  In all the great green land

  None is so great.

  She hath no more to wear

  But one white hood of vair

  Drawn over eyes and hair,

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  Wrought with strange gold,

  Made for some great queen’s head,

  Some fair great queen since dead;

  And one strait gown of red

  Against the cold.

  Beneath her eyelids deep

  Love lying seems asleep,

  Love, swift to wake, to weep,

  To laugh, to gaze;

  Her breasts are like white birds,

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  And all her gracious words

  As water-grass to herds