ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

1837

He is a reed through which all things blow into music.- Tennyson.

Optional Poems
Atalanta In Calydon.
Ave Atque Vale.

A Match.

Rococo.

By The North Sea.
Itylus.

Phrases

"Who swims in sight of the third great wave
That never a swimmer shall cross or climb."
The Triumph Of Time.

260

I will

go

DISAPPOINTMENT IN LOVE

(The Triumph Of Time)

257-288; 321-352

back to the great sweet mother,

Mother and lover of men, the sea.

I will go down to her, I and none other,

Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me;
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast;

O fair white mother, in days long past
Born without sister, born without brother,
Set free my soul as thy soul is free.

265 O fair green-girdled mother of mine,

Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain, Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,

Thy large embraces are keen like pain. Save me and hide me with all thy waves, 270 Find me one grave of thy thousand graves, Those pure cold populous graves of thine, Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

I shall sleep and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide ; 275 My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,

280

I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;
Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,
Filled full with life to the eyes and hair,
As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips

With splendid summer and perfume and pride.

This woven raiment of nights and days,

Were it once cast off and unwound from me,
Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,

Alive and aware of thy ways and thee;

285 Clear of the whole world, hidden at home, Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam, A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,

A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.

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.

325 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:

330 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 335 Once, and grew one with his lips for a space; And so drew back, and the man was dead.

340

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.

345 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,

350 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.

(257-288) What is the central idea expressed by this flow of assonance, alliteration, and rime? (321-352) In this acrobatism of metres observe the stanza which contains the normal system. Scan 345-352,

and note that the third foot in every line is an anapest.

Swinburne is not a thinker. His greatness consists in making English poetry subject to new metrical systems; on account of which the

birth of a dynamic phrase has become impossible. His combination of musical sounds is well nigh perfect and enchants as the rhythmical movements of Duessa enthralled the Red Cross knight, who, in contemplating the House of Pride, saw similar grace in every movement of its shivering, shifting foundations. The quicksands are Swinburne's metres, and the palace is his thought realm: much exterior, superficial beauty; but on rambling back to the postern gate one finds behind the paint and gilding only worm-eaten walls wherein ruined spiritual energy dwells.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

1828-1882

We are charmed by Rossetti's verse, but the burden, the message, is of slight import. Formal beauty is not everything. Charles F. Johnson.

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Optional Poems

The Burden Of Nineveh.

Sister Helen.

The Sea-Limits.

Rose Mary.

Inclusiveness. [The House Of Life.]
Lost Days. [The House Of Life.]

A Superscription. [The House Of Life.]

The Mono-Chord. [The House Of Life.]

The Ballad Of Dead Ladies, A Translation From François Villon, 1450.

Phrases

Oh! what is this that knows the road I came,

The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame,

The lifted shifted steeps and all the way?

SIBYLLA PALMIFERA; OR, SOUL'S BEAUTY
(For a Picture)

Under the arch of Life, where love and death,

Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw

Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath.