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NEWBORN DEATH (II)

A

ND thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss,

With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast,

I wandered till the haunts of men were pass'd,

And in fair places found all bowers amiss

Till only woods and waves might hear our kiss,
While to the winds all thought of Death we cast:-
Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at last

No smile to greet me and no babe but this?

Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hair
Blew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath;
And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair:
These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breath
With neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there;
And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death?

EAUTY still walketh on the earth and air:

Bour present sunsets are as rich in gold

As ere the Iliad's music was out-rolled;
The roses of the Spring are ever fair,

'Mong branches green still ring-doves coo and pair, And the deep sea still foams its music old.

So, if we are at all divinely souled,

This beauty will unloose our bonds of care.

'Tis pleasant when blue skies are o'er us bending Within old starry-gated Poesy,

To meet a soul set to no worldly tune,

Like thine, sweet friend! Oh, dearer this to me
Than are the dewy trees, the sun, the moon,
Or noble music with a golden ending.

TO DR. JOHN BROWN

EYOND the north wind lay the land of old

B 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
A star to show your spirit in present sight
Some happier island in the Elysian sea
Where Rab may lick the hand of Marjorie.

be

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

A REMINISCENCE

"HE rose to the wind has yielded: all its leaves

Tie strewn on the graveyardgrass, and all their light

And colour and fragrance leave our sense and sight
Bereft as a man whom bitter time bereaves
Of blossom at once and hope of garnered sheaves,
Of April at once and August. Day to night
Calls wailing, and life to death, and depth to height,
And soul upon soul of man that hears and grieves.
Who knows, though he see the snow-cold blossom shed,
If haply the heart that burned within the rose,
The spirit in sense, the life of life be dead?
If haply the wind that slays with storming snows

Be one with the wind that quickens? Bow thine head,
O Sorrow, and commune with thine heart: who knows?

DELIVERANCE (VIA DOLOROSA II)

DEATH, fair Death, sole comforter and sweet,

as
Nor Love nor Hope can give such gifts as thine.
Sleep hardly shows us round thy shadowy shrine
What roses hang, what music floats, what feet
Pass and what wings of angels. We repeat
Wild words or mild, disastrous or divine,
Blind prayer, blind imprecation, seeing no sign
Nor hearing aught of thee not faint and fleet

As words of men or snowflakes on the wind.

But if wechide thee, saying "Thou hast sinned, thou hast sinned,
Dark Death, to take so sweet a light away

As shone but late, though shadowed, in our skies,”
We hear thine answer-"Night has given what day
Denied him: darkness hath unsealed his eyes."

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