Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

Extracts from Atalanta in Calydon: From The Triumph of Time

THERE lived a singer in France of old

By the tideless dolorous midland sea.

In a land of sand and ruin and gold

There shone one woman, and none but she.

And finding life for her love’s sake fail,

Being fain to see her, he bade set sail,

Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold,

And praised God, seeing; and so died he.

Died, praising God for his gift and grace:

For she bowed down to him weeping, and said

“Live;” and her tears were shed on his face

Or ever the life in his face was shed.

The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung

Once, and her close lips touched him and clung

Once, and grew one with his lips for a space;

And so drew back, and the man was dead.

O brother, the gods were good to you.

Sleep, and be glad while the world endures.

Be well content as the years wear through;

Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures;

Give thanks for life, O brother, and death,

For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath,

For gifts she gave you, gracious and few,

Tears and kisses, that lady of yours.

Rest, and be glad of the gods; but I,

How shall I praise them, or how take rest?

There is not room under all the sky

For me that know not of worst or best,

Dream or desire of the days before,

Sweet things or bitterness, any more.

Love will not come to me now though I die,

As love came close to you, breast to breast.

I shall never be friends again with roses;

I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong

Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes,

As a wave of the sea turned back by song.

There are sounds where the soul’s delight takes fire,

Face to face with its own desire;

A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;

I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.

The pulse of war and passion of wonder,

The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,

The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,

The music burning at heart like wine,

An armed archangel whose hands raise up

All senses mixed in the spirit’s cup

Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder—

These things are over, and no more mine.

These were a part of the playing I heard

Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife;

Love that sings and hath wings as a bird,

Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.

Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep

Than overwatching of eyes that weep,

Now time has done with his one sweet word,

The wine and leaven of lovely life.

I shall go my ways, tread out my measure,

Fill the days of my daily breath

With fugitive things not good to treasure,

Do as the world doth, say as it saith;

But if we had loved each other—O sweet,

Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet,

The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure

To feel you tread it to dust and death—

Ah, had I not taken my life up and given

All that life gives and the years let go,

The wine and honey, the balm and leaven,

The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?

Come life, come death, not a word be said;

Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?

I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,

If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?