Poems and Ballads (third series)

Front matter

POEMS AND BALLADS

THIRD SERIES

POEMS AND BALLADS

List of Works

WORKS BY ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.

Selections from Swinburne's Poetical Works. Second Edition. Fcp. 8vo. 6s. Atalanta in Calydon Crown 8vo. 6s. Chastelard: A Tragedy. Crown 8vo. 7s. Poems and Ballads. First Series. Fcp. 8vo. 9s. Also in crown 8vo. at same price. Poems and Ballads. Second Series. Fcp. 8vo. 9s. Also in crown 8vo. at same price. Poems and Ballads. Third Series. Crown 8vo. 9s. Notes on Poems and Reviews. 8vo. 1s. Songs Before Sunrise. Crown 8vo. 10s. 6d. Bothwell: a Tragedy. Crown 8vo. 12s. 6d. Songs of Two Nations. Crown 8vo. 6s. George Chapman: An Essay. (Included in Vol. II. of George Chapman's Works.) Crown 8vo. 6s. Essays and Studies. Crown 8vo. 12s. Erechtheus: A Tragedy. Crown 8vo. 6s. Songs of the Spring-Tides. Crown 8vo. 6s. Studies in Song. Crown 8vo. 7s. Mary Stuart: A Tragedy. Crown 8vo. 8s. Tristram of Lyonesse, and other Poems. Crown 8vo. 9s. A Century of Roundels. Small 4to. 8s. A Midsummer Holiday, and other Poems. Crown 8vo. 7s. Marino Faliero: A Tragedy. Crown 8vo. 6s. A Study of Victor Hugo. Crown 8vo. 6s. Miscellanies: Crown 8vo. 6s. Locrine: A Tragedy. Crown 8vo. 6s.

London: CHATTO & WINDUS, Piccadilly.

March: an Ode

MARCH: AN ODE.

1887.

i.

Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and

the splendour of winter had passed out of sight, The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight; The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night,

Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made, March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite.

ii.

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel

and ravin and spoil of the snow, And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low, How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that exults to be born So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness whose laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn? Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow As a lover's that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and tresses yet wasted and torn, Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her spirit the sense of thee flow.

iii.

Fain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the

wind and the sun have dispelled and consumed, Those full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose luminous burden the branches implumed Hung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not as birds are, but petalled as flowers, Each tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and carved, or a fountain that shines as it showers, But fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to last till by time or by tempest entombed, As a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of its doom is no more than an hour's, One hour of the sun's when the warm wind wakes him to wither the snow-flowers that froze as they bloomed.

iv.

As the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April

subdues thee, and yields up his kingdom to May;

So time overcomes the regret that is born of delight as it passes in passion away, And leaves but a dream for desire to rejoice in or mourn for with tears or thanksgivings; but thou, Bright god that art gone from us, maddest and gladdest of months, to what goal hast thou gone from us now? For somewhere surely the storm of thy laughter that lightens, the beat of thy wings that play, Must flame as a fire through the world, and the heavens that we know not rejoice in thee: surely thy brow Hath lost not its radiance of empire, thy spirit the joy that impelled it on quest as for prey.

v.

Are thy feet on the ways of the limitless waters, thy wings

on the winds of the waste north sea? Are the fires of the false north dawn over heavens where summer is stormful and strong like thee Now bright in the sight of thine eyes? are the bastions of icebergs assailed by the blast of thy breath?

Is it March with the wild north world when April is waning? the word that the changed year saith, Is it echoed to northward with rapture of passion reiterate from spirits triumphant as we Whose hearts were uplift at the blast of thy clarions as men's rearisen from a sleep that was death And kindled to life that was one with the world's and with thine? hast thou set not the whole world free?

vi.

For the breath of thy lips is freedom, and freedom's the

sense of thy spirit, the sound of thy song, Glad god of the north-east wind, whose heart is as high as the hands of thy kingdom are strong, Thy kingdom whose empire is terror and joy, twin-featured and fruitful of births divine, Days lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers, and nights that are drunken with dew for wine, And sleep not for joy of the stars that deepen and quicken, a denser and fierier throng,

And the world that thy breath bade whiten and tremble rejoices at heart as they strengthen and shine, And earth gives thanks for the glory bequeathed her, and knows of thy reign that it wrought not wrong.

vii.

Thy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face

in the crown of the steep sky's arch, And the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise of the thorn and the larch: Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the wildest of winds that blow, Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden with blossom are sprinkled with snow, And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live woods feel not the frost's flame parch; For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt at the heart of the forest aglow, And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands of the gods of the winds of March.

The Commonweal

THE COMMONWEAL.

1887.

i.

Eight hundred years and twenty-one

Have shone and sunken since the land Whose name is freedom bore such brand As marks a captive, and the sun Beheld her fettered hand.

ii.

But ere dark time had shed as rain

Or sown on sterile earth as seed That bears no fruit save tare and weed An age and half an age again, She rose on Runnymede.

iii.

Out of the shadow, starlike still,

She rose up radiant in her right, And spake, and put to fear and flight The lawless rule of awless will That pleads no right save might.

iv.

Nor since hath England ever borne

The burden laid on subject lands, The rule that curbs and binds all hands Save one, and marks for servile scorn The heads it bows and brands.

v.

A commonweal arrayed and crowned

With gold and purple, girt with steel At need, that foes must fear or feel, We find her, as our fathers found, Earth's lordliest commonweal.

vi.

And now that fifty years are flown

Since in a maiden's hand the sign Of empire that no seas confine First as a star to seaward shone, We see their record shine.

vii.

A troubled record, foul and fair,

A simple record and serene, Inscribes for praise a blameless queen, For praise and blame an age of care And change and ends unseen.

viii.

Hope, wide of eye and wild of wing,

Rose with the sundawn of a reign Whose grace should make the rough ways plain, And fill the worn old world with spring, And heal its heart of pain.

ix.

Peace was to be on earth; men's hope

Was holier than their fathers had, Their wisdom not more wise than glad: They saw the gates of promise ope, And heard what love's lips bade.

x.

Love armed with knowledge, winged and wise,

Should hush the wind of war, and see, They said, the sun of days to be Bring round beneath serener skies A stormless jubilee.

xi.

Time, in the darkness unbeholden

That hides him from the sight of fear And lets but dreaming hope draw near, Smiled and was sad to hear such golden Strains hail the all-golden year.

xii.

Strange clouds have risen between, and wild

Red stars of storm that lit the abyss Wherein fierce fraud and violence kiss And mock such promise as beguiled The fiftieth year from this.

xiii.

War upon war, change after change,

Hath shaken thrones and towers to dust, And hopes austere and faiths august Have watched in patience stern and strange Men's works unjust and just.

xiv.

As from some Alpine watch-tower's portal

Night, living yet, looks forth for dawn, So from time's mistier mountain lawn The spirit of man, in trust immortal, Yearns toward a hope withdrawn.

xv.

The morning comes not, yet the night

Wanes, and men's eyes win strength to see Where twilight is, where light shall be When conquered wrong and conquering right Acclaim a world set free.

xvi.

Calm as our mother-land, the mother

Of faith and freedom, pure and wise, Keeps watch beneath unchangeful skies, When hath she watched the woes of other Strange lands with alien eyes?

xvii.

Calm as she stands alone, what nation

Hath lacked an alms from English hands? What exiles from what stricken lands Have lacked the shelter of the station Where higher than all she stands?

xviii.

Though time discrown and change dismantle

The pride of thrones and towers that frown, How should they bring her glories down— The sea cast round her like a mantle, The sea-cloud like a crown?

xix.

The sea, divine as heaven and deathless,

Is hers, and none but only she Hath learnt the sea's word, none but we Her children hear in heart the breathless Bright watchword of the sea.

xx.

Heard not of others, or misheard

Of many a land for many a year, The watchword Freedom fails not here Of hearts that witness if the word Find faith in England's ear.

xxi.

She, first to love the light, and daughter

Incarnate of the northern dawn, She, round whose feet the wild waves fawn When all their wrath of warring water Sounds like a babe's breath drawn,

xxii.

How should not she best know, love best,

And best of all souls understand The very soul of freedom, scanned Far off, sought out in darkling quest By men at heart unmanned?

xxiii.

They climb and fall, ensnared, enshrouded,

By mists of words and toils they set To take themselves, till fierce regret Grows mad with shame, and all their clouded Red skies hang sunless yet.

xxiv.

But us the sun, not wholly risen

Nor equal now for all, illumes With more of light than cloud that looms; Of light that leads forth souls from prison And breaks the seals of tombs.

xxv.

Did not her breasts who reared us rear

Him who took heaven in hand, and weighed Bright world with world in balance laid? What Newton's might could make not clear Hath Darwin's might not made?

xxvi.

The forces of the dark dissolve, The doorways of the dark are broken: The word that casts out night is spoken, And whence the springs of things evolve Light born of night bears token.

xxvii.

She, loving light for light's sake only,

And truth for only truth's, and song For song's sake and the sea's, how long Hath she not borne the world her lonely Witness of right and wrong?

xxviii.

From light to light her eyes imperial

Turn, and require the further light, More perfect than the sun's in sight, Till star and sun seem all funereal Lamps of the vaulted night.

xxix.

She gazes till the strenuous soul

Within the rapture of her eyes Creates or bids awake, arise, The light she looks for, pure and whole And worshipped of the wise.

xxx.

Such sons are hers, such radiant hands

Have borne abroad her lamp of old, Such mouths of honey-dropping gold Have sent across all seas and lands Her fame as music rolled.

xxxi.

As music made of rolling thunder

That hurls through heaven its heart sublime, Its heart of joy, in charging chime, So ring the songs that round and under Her temple surge and climb.

xxxii.

A temple not by men's hands builded,

But moulded of the spirit, and wrought Of passion and imperious thought; With light beyond all sunlight gilded, Whereby the sun seems nought.

xxxiii.

Thy shrine, our mother, seen for fairer

Than even thy natural face, made fair With kisses of thine April air Even now, when spring thy banner-bearer Took up thy sign to bear;

xxxiv.

Thine annual sign from heaven's own arch

Given of the sun's hand into thine, To rear and cheer each wildwood shrine But now laid waste by wild-winged March, March, mad with wind like wine.

xxxv.

From all thy brightening downs whereon

The windy seaward whin-flower shows Blossom whose pride strikes pale the rose Forth is the golden watchword gone Whereat the world's face glows.

xxxvi.

Thy quickening woods rejoice and ring

Till earth seems glorious as the sea: With yearning love too glad for glee The world's heart quivers toward the spring As all our hearts toward thee.

xxxvii.

Thee, mother, thee, our queen, who givest

Assurance to the heavens most high And earth whereon her bondsmen sigh That by the sea's grace while thou livest Hope shall not wholly die.

xxxviii.

That while thy free folk hold the van

Of all men, and the sea-spray shed As dew more heavenly on thy head Keeps bright thy face in sight of man, Man's pride shall drop not dead.

xxxix.

A pride more pure than humblest prayer,

More wise than wisdom born of doubt, Girds for thy sake men's hearts about With trust and triumph that despair And fear may cast not out.

xl.

Despair may wring men's hearts, and fear

Bow down their heads to kiss the dust, Where patriot memories rot and rust, And change makes faint a nation's cheer, And faith yields up her trust.

xli.

Not here this year have true men known,

Not here this year may true men know, That brand of shame-compelling woe Which bids but brave men shrink or groan And lays but honour low.

xlii.

The strong spring wind blows notes of praise,

And hallowing pride of heart, and cheer Unchanging, toward all true men here Who hold the trust of ancient days High as of old this year.

xliii.

The days that made thee great are dead;

The days that now must keep thee great Lie not in keeping of thy fate; In thine they lie, whose heart and head Sustain thy charge of state.

xliv.

No state so proud, no pride so just,

The sun, through clouds at sunrise curled Or clouds across the sunset whirled, Hath sight of, nor has man such trust As thine in all the world.

xlv.

Each hour that sees the sunset's crest

Make bright thy shores ere day decline Sees dawn the sun on shores of thine, Sees west as east and east as west On thee their sovereign shine.

xlvi.

The sea's own heart must needs wax proud

To have borne the world a child like thee. What birth of earth might ever be Thy sister? Time, a wandering cloud, Is sunshine on thy sea.

xlvii.

Change mars not her; and thee, our mother,

What change that irks or moves thee mars? What shock that shakes? what chance that jars? Time gave thee, as he gave none other, A station like a star's.

xlviii.

The storm that shrieks, the wind that wages

War with the wings of hopes that climb Too high toward heaven in doubt sublime, Assail not thee, approved of ages The towering crown of time.

xlix.

Toward thee this year thy children turning

With souls uplift of changeless cheer Salute with love that casts out fear, With hearts for beacons round thee burning, The token of this year.

l.

With just and sacred jubilation

Let earth sound answer to the sea For witness, blown on winds as free, How England, how her crowning nation, Acclaims this jubilee.

The Armada

THE ARMADA.

1588: 1888

I.

i.

England, mother born of seamen, daughter fostered of

the sea, Mother more beloved than all who bear not all their children free, Reared and nursed and crowned and cherished by the sea-wind and the sun, Sweetest land and strongest, face most fair and mightiest heart in one, Stands not higher than when the centuries known of earth were less by three, When the strength that struck the whole world pale fell back from hers undone.

ii.

At her feet were the heads of her foes bowed down, and

the strengths of the storm of them stayed, And the hearts that were touched not with mercy with terror were touched and amazed and affrayed: Yea, hearts that had never been molten with pity were molten with fear as with flame, And the priests of the Godhead whose temple is hell, and his heart is of iron and fire, And the swordsmen that served and the seamen that sped them, whom peril could tame not or tire, Were as foam on the winds of the waters of England which tempest can tire not or tame.

iii.

They were girded about with thunder, and lightning came

forth of the rage of their strength, And the measure that measures the wings of the storm was the breadth of their force and the length:

And the name of their might was Invincible, covered and clothed with the terror of God; With his wrath were they winged, with his love were they fired, with the speed of his winds were they shod; With his soul were they filled, in his trust were they comforted: grace was upon them as night, And faith as the blackness of darkness: the fume of their balefires was fair in his sight, The reek of them sweet as a savour of myrrh in his nostrils: the world that he made, Theirs was it by gift of his servants: the wind, if they spake in his name, was afraid, And the sun was a shadow before it, the stars were astonished with fear of it: fire Went up to them, fed with men living, and lit of men's hands for a shrine or a pyre; And the east and the west wind scattered their ashes abroad, that his name should be blest Of the tribes of the chosen whose blessings are curses from uttermost east unto west.

II.

i.

Hell for Spain, and heaven for England,—God to God, and man to man,—

Met confronted, light with darkness, life with death: since time began, Never earth nor sea beheld so great a stake before them set, Save when Athens hurled back Asia from the lists wherein they met; Never since the sands of ages through the glass of history ran Saw the sun in heaven a lordlier day than this that lights us yet.

ii.

For the light that abides upon England, the glory that rests on her godlike name,

The pride that is love and the love that is faith, a perfume dissolved in flame, Took fire from the dawn of the fierce July when fleets were scattered as foam And squadrons as flakes of spray; when galleon and galliass that shadowed the sea Were swept from her waves like shadows that pass with the clouds they fell from, and she Laughed loud to the wind as it gave to her keeping the glories of Spain and Rome.

iii.

Three hundred summers have fallen as leaves by the storms in their season thinned,

Since northward the war-ships of Spain came sheer up the way of the south-west wind: Where the citadel cliffs of England are flanked with bastions of serpentine, Far off to the windward loomed their hulls, an hundred and twenty-nine,

All filled full of the war, full-fraught with battle and charged with bale; Then store-ships weighted with cannon; and all were an hundred and fifty sail. The measureless menace of darkness anhungered with hope to prevail upon light, The shadow of death made substance, the present and visible spirit of night, Came, shaped as a waxing or waning moon that rose with the fall of day, To the channel where couches the Lion in guard of the gate of the lustrous bay. Fair England, sweet as the sea that shields her, and pure as the sea from stain, Smiled, hearing hardly for scorn that stirred her the menace of saintly Spain.

III. i.

'They that ride over ocean wide with hempen bridle and horse of tree,'

How shall they in the darkening day of wrath and anguish and fear go free? How shall these that have curbed the seas not feel his bridle who made the sea?

God shall bow them and break them now: for what is man in the Lord God's sight? Fear shall shake them, and shame shall break, and all the noon of their pride be night: These that sinned shall the ravening wind of doom bring under, and judgment smite.

England broke from her neck the yoke, and rent the fetter, and mocked the rod:

Shrines of old that she decked with gold she turned to dust, to the dust she trod: What is she, that the wind and sea should fight beside her, and war with God?

Lo, the cloud of his ships that crowd her channel's inlet with storm sublime, Darker far than the tempests are that sweep the skies of her northmost clime; Huge and dense as the walls that fence the secret darkness of unknown time.

Mast on mast as a tower goes past, and sail by sail as a cloud's wing spread; Fleet by fleet, as the throngs whose feet keep time with death in his dance of dread; Galleons dark as the helmsman's bark of old that ferried to hell the dead.

Squadrons proud as their lords, and loud with tramp of soldiers and chant of priests;

Slaves there told by the thousandfold, made fast in bondage as herded beasts; Lords and slaves that the sweet free waves shall feed on, satiate with funeral feasts.

Nay, not so shall it be, they know; their priests have said it; can priesthood lie? God shall keep them, their God shall sleep not: peril and evil shall pass them by: Nay, for these are his children; seas and winds shall bid not his children die.

ii.

So they boast them, the monstrous host whose menace mocks at the dawn: and here

They that wait at the wild sea's gate, and watch the darkness of doom draw near, How shall they in their evil day sustain the strength of their hearts for fear?

Full July in the fervent sky sets forth her twentieth of changing morns: Winds fall mild that of late waxed wild: no presage whispers or wails or warns: Far to west on the bland sea's breast a sailing crescent uprears her horns.

Seven wide miles the serene sea smiles between them stretching from rim to rim: Soft they shine, but a darker sign should bid not hope or belief wax dim: God's are these men, and not the sea's: their trust is set not on her but him.

God's? but who is the God whereto the prayers and incense of these men rise? What is he, that the wind and sea should fear him, quelled by his sunbright eyes? What, that men should return again, and hail him Lord of the servile skies?

Hell's own flame at his heavenly name leaps higher and laughs, and its gulfs rejoice: Plague and death from his baneful breath take life and lighten, and praise his choice: Chosen are they to devour for prey the tribes that hear not and fear his voice.

Ay, but we that the wind and sea gird round with shelter of storms and waves Know not him that ye worship, grim as dreams that quicken from dead men's graves: God is one with the sea, the sun, the land that nursed us, the love that saves.

Love whose heart is in ours, and part of all things noble and all things fair; Sweet and free as the circling sea, sublime and kind as the fostering air; Pure of shame as is England's name, whose crowns to come are as crowns that were.

IV i.

But the Lord of darkness, the God whose love is a flaming fire,

The master whose mercy fulfils wide hell till its torturers tire, He shall surely have heed of his servants who serve him for love, not hire.

They shall fetter the wing of the wind whose pinions are plumed with foam: For now shall thy horn be exalted, and now shall thy bolt strike home; Yea, now shall thy kingdom come, Lord God of the priests of Rome.

They shall cast thy curb on the waters, and bridle the waves of the sea: They shall say to her, Peace, be still: and stillness and peace shall be: And the winds and the storms shall hear them, and tremble, and worship thee.

Thy breath shall darken the morning, and wither the mounting sun; And the daysprings, frozen and fettered, shall know thee, and cease to run; The heart of the world shall feel thee, and die, and thy will be done.

The spirit of man that would sound thee, and search out causes of things, Shall shrink and subside and praise thee: and wisdom, with plume-plucked wings, Shall cower at thy feet and confess thee, that none may fathom thy springs.

The fountains of song that await but the wind of an April to be To burst the bonds of the winter, and speak with the sound of a sea, The blast of thy mouth shall quench them: and song shall be only of thee.

The days that are dead shall quicken, the seasons that were shall return; And the streets and the pastures of England, the woods that burgeon and yearn, Shall be whitened with ashes of women and children and men that burn.

For the mother shall burn with the babe sprung forth of her womb in fire, And bride with bridegroom, and brother with sister, and son with sire; And the noise of the flames shall be sweet in thine ears as the sound of a lyre.

Yea, so shall thy kingdom be stablished, and so shall the signs of it be: And the world shall know, and the wind shall speak, and the sun shall see, That these are the works of thy servants, whose works bear witness to thee.

ii.

But the dusk of the day falls fruitless, whose light should have lit them on:

Sails flash through the gloom to shoreward, eclipsed as the sun that shone: And the west wind wakes with dawn, and the hope that was here is gone.

Around they wheel and around, two knots to the Spaniard's one, The wind-swift warriors of England, who shoot as with shafts of the sun, With fourfold shots for the Spaniard's, that spare not till day be done.

And the wind with the sundown sharpens, and hurtles the ships to the lee, And Spaniard on Spaniard smites, and shatters, and yields; and we, Ere battle begin, stand lords of the battle, acclaimed of the sea.

And the day sweeps round to the nightward; and heavy and hard the waves Roll in on the herd of the hurtling galleons; and masters and slaves Reel blind in the grasp of the dark strong wind that shall dig their graves.

For the sepulchres hollowed and shaped of the wind in the swerve of the seas, The graves that gape for their pasture, and laugh, thrilled through by the breeze, The sweet soft merciless waters, await and are fain of these.

As the hiss of a Python heaving in menace of doom to be They hear through the clear night round them, whose hours are as clouds that flee, The whisper of tempest sleeping, the heave and the hiss of the sea.

But faith is theirs, and with faith are they girded and helmed and shod: Invincible are they, almighty, elect for a sword and a rod; Invincible even as their God is omnipotent, infinite, God.

In him is their strength, who have sworn that his glory shall wax not dim: In his name are their war-ships hallowed as mightiest of all that swim: The men that shall cope with these, and conquer, shall cast out him.

In him is the trust of their hearts; the desire of their eyes is he; The light of their ways, made lightning for men that would fain be free: Earth's hosts are with them, and with them is heaven: but with us is the sea.

V. i.

And a day and a night pass over;

And the heart of their chief swells high; For England, the warrior, the rover, Whose banners on all winds fly, Soul-stricken, he saith, by the shadow of death, holds off him, and draws not nigh.

And the wind and the dawn together Make in from the gleaming east:

And fain of the wild glad weather As famine is fain of feast, And fain of the fight, forth sweeps in its might the host of the Lord's high priest.