Life poems

 / page 730 of 844 /
star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

A Dialogue

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

I
DEATH, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee:
Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built,
One shelter where our spirits fain would be,
Death, if thou wit?

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

A Year's Burden -- 1870

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear,
Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer
As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year;
Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Plus Ultra

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Far beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises
Heaven, with worlds on worlds that lighten and respond:
Thought can see not thence the goal of hope's surmises
Far beyond.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Siena

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Inside this northern summer's fold
The fields are full of naked gold,
Broadcast from heaven on lands it loves;
The green veiled air is full of doves;

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Marzo Pazzo

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Mad March, with the wind in his wings wide-spread,
Leaps from heaven, and the deep dawn's arch
Hails re-risen again from the dead
Mad March.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Christmas Antiphones

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Music: An Ode

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

WAS it light that spake from the darkness,
or music that shone from the word,
When the night was enkindled with sound
of the sun or the first-born bird?

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Epilogue

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Between the wave-ridge and the strand
I let you forth in sight of land,
Songs that with storm-crossed wings and eyes
Strain eastward till the darkness dies;

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Benediction

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Blest in death and life beyond man's guessing
Little children live and die, possest
Still of grace that keeps them past expressing
Blest.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Had I Wist

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing
Light and loud through sundawn and the dew's bright trust,
How the time should come for hearts to sigh in saying
'Had I wist' -

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

In the Bay

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

If any place for any soul there be,
Disrobed and disentrammelled; if the might
The fire and force that filled with ardent light
The souls whose shadow is half the light we see,
Survive and be suppressed not of the night;
This hour should show what all day hid from me.IV

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

A Channel Crossing

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,
Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:
Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour
Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower,

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

The Complaint of Lisa

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Song, speak for me who am dumb as are the dead;
From my sad bed of tears I send forth thee,
To fly all day from sun's birth to sun's death
Down the sun's way after the flying sun,
For love of her that gave thee wings and breath
Ere day be done, to seek the sunflower.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Autumn And Winter

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon
Between two dates of death, while men were fain
Yet of the living light that all too soon
Three months bade wane.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,
Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?
Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Cor Cordium

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

O heart of hearts, the chalice of love's fire,
Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom;
O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom
The lyrist liberty made life a lyre;

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Tiresias

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

It is an hour before the hour of dawn.
Set in mine hand my staff and leave me here
Outside the hollow house that blind men fear,
More blind than I who live on life withdrawn
And feel on eyes that see not but foresee
The shadow of death which clothes Antigone.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Hymn Of Man

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

In the grey beginning of years, in the twilight of things that began,
The word of the earth in the ears of the world, was it God? was it man?
The word of the earth to the spheres her sisters, the note of her song,
The sound of her speech in the ears of the starry and sisterly throng,

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

Hertha

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

I AM that which began;
Out of me the years roll;
Out of me God and man;
I am equal and whole;
God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.

star nullstar nullstar nullstar nullstar null

The Pilgrims

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.