Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne, Vol V.

I

Straight from the sun's grave in the deep clear west A sweet strong wind blows, glad of life: and I, Under the soft keen stardawn whence the sky Takes life renewed, and all night's godlike breast Palpitates, gradually revealed at rest By growth and change of ardours felt on high, Make onward, till the last flame fall and die And all the world by night's broad hand lie blest. Haply, meseems, as from that edge of death, Whereon the day lies dark, a brightening breath Blows more of benediction than the morn, So from the graves whereon grief gazing saith That half our heart of life there lies forlorn May light or breath at least of hope be born.

Ii

The wind was soft before the sunset fled: Now, while the cloud-enshrouded corpse of day Is lowered along a red funereal way Down to the dark that knows not white from red, A clear sheer breeze against the night makes head, Serene, but sure of life as ere a ray Springs, or the dusk of dawn knows red from grey, Being as a soul that knows not quick from dead. From far beyond the sunset, far above, Full toward the starry soundless east it blows Bright as a child's breath breathing on a rose, Smooth to the sense as plume of any dove; Till more and more as darkness grows and glows Silence and night seem likest life and love.

Iii

If light of life outlive the set of sun That men call death and end of all things, then How should not that which life held best for men And proved most precious, though it seem undone By force of death and woful victory won, Be first and surest of revival, when Death shall bow down to life arisen again? So shall the soul seen be the self-same one That looked and spake with even such lips and eyes As love shall doubt not then to recognise, And all bright thoughts and smiles of all time past Revive, transfigured, but in spirit and sense None other than we knew, for evidence That love's last mortal word was not his last.

A Study From Memory

If that be yet a living soul which here Seemed brighter for the growth of numbered springs And clothed by Time and Pain with goodlier things Each year it saw fulfilled a fresh fleet year, Death can have changed not aught that made it dear; Half humorous goodness, grave-eyed mirth on wings Bright-balanced, blither-voiced than quiring strings; Most radiant patience, crowned with conquering cheer; A spirit inviolable that smiled and sang By might of nature and heroic need More sweet and strong than loftiest dream or deed; A song that shone, a light whence music rang High as the sunniest heights of kindliest thought; All these must be, or all she was be nought.

To Dr. John Brown

Beyond the north wind lay the land of old Where men dwelt blithe and blameless, clothed and fed With joy's bright raiment and with love's sweet bread, The whitest flock of earth's maternal fold. None there might wear about his brows enrolled A light of lovelier fame than rings your head, Whose lovesome love of children and the dead All men give thanks for: I far off behold A dear dead hand that links us, and a light The blithest and benignest of the night, The night of death's sweet sleep, wherein may be A star to show your spirit in present sight Some happier island in the Elysian sea Where Rab may lick the hand of Marjorie.

March 1882.

To William Bell Scott

The larks are loud above our leagues of whin Now the sun's perfume fills their glorious gold With odour like the colour: all the wold Is only light and song and wind wherein These twain are blent in one with shining din. And now your gift, a giver's kingly-souled, Dear old fast friend whose honours grow not old, Bids memory's note as loud and sweet begin. Though all but we from life be now gone forth Of that bright household in our joyous north Where I, scarce clear of boyhood just at end, First met your hand; yet under life's clear dome, Now seventy strenuous years have crowned my friend, Shines no less bright his full-sheaved harvest-home.

April 20, 1882.

A Death on Easter Day

The strong spring sun rejoicingly may rise, Rise and make revel, as of old men said, Like dancing hearts of lovers newly wed: A light more bright than ever bathed the skies Departs for all time out of all men's eyes. The crowns that girt last night a living head Shine only now, though deathless, on the dead: Art that mocks death, and Song that never dies. Albeit the bright sweet mothlike wings be furled, Hope sees, past all division and defection, And higher than swims the mist of human breath, The soul most radiant once in all the world Requickened to regenerate resurrection Out of the likeness of the shadow of death.

April 1882.

ON THE DEATHS OF THOMAS CARLYLE AND GEORGE ELIOT

Two souls diverse out of our human sight Pass, followed one with love and each with wonder: The stormy sophist with his mouth of thunder, Clothed with loud words and mantled in the might Of darkness and magnificence of night; And one whose eye could smite the night in sunder, Searching if light or no light were thereunder, And found in love of loving-kindness light. Duty divine and Thought with eyes of fire Still following Righteousness with deep desire Shone sole and stern before her and above, Sure stars and sole to steer by; but more sweet Shone lower the loveliest lamp for earthly feet, The light of little children, and their love.

AFTER LOOKING INTO CARLYLE'S REMINISCENCES

I

Three men lived yet when this dead man was young Whose names and words endure for ever: one Whose eyes grew dim with straining toward the sun, And his wings weakened, and his angel's tongue Lost half the sweetest song was ever sung, But like the strain half uttered earth hears none, Nor shall man hear till all men's songs are done: One whose clear spirit like an eagle hung Between the mountains hallowed by his love And the sky stainless as his soul above: And one the sweetest heart that ever spake The brightest words wherein sweet wisdom smiled. These deathless names by this dead snake defiled Bid memory spit upon him for their sake.

Ii

Sweet heart, forgive me for thine own sweet sake, Whose kind blithe soul such seas of sorrow swam, And for my love's sake, powerless as I am For love to praise thee, or like thee to make Music of mirth where hearts less pure would break, Less pure than thine, our life-unspotted Lamb. Things hatefullest thou hadst not heart to damn, Nor wouldst have set thine heel on this dead snake. Let worms consume its memory with its tongue, The fang that stabbed fair Truth, the lip that stung Men's memories uncorroded with its breath. Forgive me, that with bitter words like his I mix the gentlest English name that is, The tenderest held of all that know not death.

A Last Look

Sick of self-love, Malvolio, like an owl That hoots the sun rerisen where starlight sank, With German garters crossed athwart thy frank Stout Scottish legs, men watched thee snarl and scowl, And boys responsive with reverberate howl Shrilled, hearing how to thee the springtime stank And as thine own soul all the world smelt rank And as thine own thoughts Liberty seemed foul. Now, for all ill thoughts nursed and ill words given Not all condemned, not utterly forgiven, Son of the storm and darkness, pass in peace. Peace upon earth thou knewest not: now, being dead, Rest, with nor curse nor blessing on thine head, Where high-strung hate and strenuous envy cease.

Dickens

Chief in thy generation born of men Whom English praise acclaimed as English-born, With eyes that matched the worldwide eyes of morn For gleam of tears or laughter, tenderest then When thoughts of children warmed their light, or when Reverence of age with love and labour worn, Or godlike pity fired with godlike scorn, Shot through them flame that winged thy swift live pen: Where stars and suns that we behold not burn, Higher even than here, though highest was here thy place, Love sees thy spirit laugh and speak and shine With Shakespeare and the soft bright soul of Sterne And Fielding's kindliest might and Goldsmith's grace; Scarce one more loved or worthier love than thine.

I

If all the flowers of all the fields on earth By wonder-working summer were made one, Its fragrance were not sweeter in the sun, Its treasure-house of leaves were not more worth Than those wherefrom thy light of musing mirth Shone, till each leaf whereon thy pen would run Breathed life, and all its breath was benison. Beloved beyond all names of English birth, More dear than mightier memories; gentlest name That ever clothed itself with flower-sweet fame, Or linked itself with loftiest names of old By right and might of loving; I, that am Less than the least of those within thy fold, Give only thanks for them to thee, Charles Lamb.

Ii

So many a year had borne its own bright bees And slain them since thy honey-bees were hived, John Day, in cells of flower-sweet verse contrived So well with craft of moulding melodies, Thy soul perchance in amaranth fields at ease Thought not to hear the sound on earth revived Of summer music from the spring derived When thy song sucked the flower of flowering trees. But thine was not the chance of every day: Time, after many a darkling hour, grew sunny, And light between the clouds ere sunset swam, Laughing, and kissed their darkness all away, When, touched and tasted and approved, thy honey Took subtler sweetness from the lips of Lamb.

I

Friend of the dead, and friend of all my days Even since they cast off boyhood, I salute The song saluting friends whose songs are mute With full burnt-offerings of clear-spirited praise. That since our old young years our several ways Have led through fields diverse of flower and fruit, Yet no cross wind has once relaxed the root We set long since beneath the sundawn's rays, The root of trust whence towered the trusty tree, Friendship--this only and duly might impel My song to salutation of your own; More even than praise of one unseen of me And loved--the starry spirit of Dobell, To mine by light and music only known.

Ii

But more than this what moves me most of all To leave not all unworded and unsped The whole heart's greeting of my thanks unsaid Scarce needs this sign, that from my tongue should fall His name whom sorrow and reverent love recall, The sign to friends on earth of that dear head Alive, which now long since untimely dead The wan grey waters covered for a pall. Their trustless reaches dense with tangling stems Took never life more taintless of rebuke, More pure and perfect, more serene and kind, Than when those clear eyes closed beneath the Thames, And made the now more hallowed name of Luke Memorial to us of morning left behind.