Envoi.

Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire,
A harlot was thy nurse, a God thy sire;

Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame.
But from thy feet now death has washed the mire,
Love reads out first at head of all our quire.

Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

THE EPITAPH IN FORM OF A BALLAD

Which Villon made for himself and his comrades, expecting to be hanged along with them.

Men, brother men, that after us yet live,

Let not your hearts too hard against us be;
For if some pity of us poor men ye give,
The sooner God shall take of you pity.
Here are we five or six strung up, you see,
And here the flesh that all too well we fed
Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred,
And we the bones grow dust and ash withal;
Let no man laugh at us discomforted,

But pray to God that he forgive us all.

If we call on you, brothers, to forgive,

[we

Ye should not hold our prayer in scorn, though

Were slain by law; ye know that all alive

Have not wit alway to walk righteously;
Make therefore intercession heartily
With him that of a virgin's womb was bred,
That his grace be not as a dry well-head

For us, nor let hell's thunder on us fall;
We are dead, let no man harry or vex us dead,
But pray to God that he forgive us all.

The rain has washed and laundered us all five,
And the sun dried and blackened; yea, per die,
Ravens and pies with beaks that rend and rive.
Have dug our eyes out, and plucked off for fee

Our beards and eyebrows; never are we free, Not once, to rest; but here and there still sped, Drive at its wild will by the wind's change led,

More pecked of birds than fruits on garden-wall. Men, for God's love, let no gibe here be said,

But pray to God that he forgive us all.

Prince Jesus, that of all art lord and head,
Keep us, that hell be not our bitter bed;
We have nought to do in such a master's hall.
Be not ye therefore of our fellowhead,

But pray to God that he forgive us all.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

ours,

A BALLAD OF BATH.

Like a queen enchanted who may not laugh or weep,
Glad at heart and guarded from change and care like
Girt about with beauty by days and nights that creep
Soft as breathless ripples that softly shoreward sweep,
Lies the lovely city whose grace no grief deflowers.
Age and grey forgetfulness, time that shifts and veers,
Touch thee not, our fairest, whose charm no rival nears,
England's Florence of one whose praise

Hailed as

gives grace,

Landor, once thy lover, a name that love reveres : Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.

Dawn whereof we know not, and noon whose fruit we

reap,

Garnered up in record of years that fell like flowers, Sunset liker sunrise along the shining steep

Whence thy fair face lightens, and where thy soft springs leap,

Crown at once and gird thee with grace of guardian

powers.

Loved of men beloved of us, souls that fame inspheres, All thine air hath music for him who dreams and hears;

Voices mixed of multitudes, feet of friends that pace, Witness why for ever, if heaven's face clouds or clears,

Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.

Peace hath here found harbourage mild as very sleep: Not the hills and waters, the fields and wildwood bowers,

Smile or speak more tenderly, clothed with peace more deep,

Here than memory whispers of days our memories keep Fast with love and laughter and dreams of withered hours.

Bright were these as blossom of old, and thought endears Still the fair soft phantoms that pass with smiles or tears,

Sweet as roseleaves hoarded and dried wherein we

trace

Still the soul and spirit of sense that lives and cheers : Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.

City lulled asleep by the chime of passing years,
Sweeter smiles thy rest than the radiance round thy peers;
Only love and lovely remembrance here have place.
Time on thee lies lighter than music on men's ears;
Dawn and noon and sunset are one before thy face.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

A BALLAD OF SARK

High beyond the granite portal arched across,
Like the gateway of some godlike giant's hold
Sweep and swell the billowy breasts of moor and moss

East and westward, and the dell their slopes enfold.
Basks in purple, glows in green, exults in gold.
Glens that know the dove and fells that hear the lark
Fill with joy the rapturous island, as an ark

[tree, Full of spicery wrought from herb and flower and None would dream that grief even here may disembark On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.

Rocks emblazoned like the mid shield's royal boss

Take the sun with all their blossom broad and bold. None would dream that all this moorland's glow and gloss Could be dark as tombs that strike the spirit acold, Even in eyes that opened here, and here behold Now no sun relume from hope's belated spark, Any comfort, nor may ears of mourners hark

Though the ripe woods ring with golden-throated
glee,

While the soul lies shattered, like a stranded bark
On the wrathiul woful marge of earth and sea.

Death and doom are they whose crested triumphs toss
On the proud plumed waves whence mourning notes

are tolled.

Wail of perfect

woe and moan for utter loss

Raise the bride-song through the graveyard on the

wold

Where the bride-bed keeps the bridegroom fast in

mould,

Where the bride, with death for priest and doom for clerk,

Hears for choir the throats of waves like wolves that bark,
Sore anhungered, off the drear Eperquerie,
Fain to spoil the strongholds of the strength of Sark
On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.

Prince of storm and tempest, lord whose ways are dark, Wind whose wings are spread for flight that none may mark,

Lightly dies the joy that lives by grace of thee. Love through thee lies bleeding, hope lies cold and stark, On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

(Chant Royal, after Holbein.)

"Contra vim MORTIS

Non est medicamen in hortis."

He is the despots' Despot. All must bide,
Later or soon, the message of his might;
Princes and potentates their heads must hide,
Touched by the awful sigil of his right;
Beside the Kaiser he at eve doth wait
And pours a potion in his cup of state;
The stately Queen his bidding must obey;
No keen-eyed Cardinal shall Kim affray;
And to the Dame that wantoneth he saith-
"Let be, Sweetheart, to junket and to play..."
There is no king more terrible than Death.

The lusty Lord, rejoicing in his pride,

He draweth down; before the armed Knight
With jingling bridle-rein he still doth ride;

He crosseth the strong Captain in the fight;