III

Venice

Out of the dark pure twilight, where the stream Flows glimmering, streaked by many a birdlike bark That skims the gloom whence towers and bridges gleam Out of the dark,

Once more a face no glance might choose but mark Shone pale and bright, with eyes whose deep slow beam Made quick the twilight, lifeless else and stark.

The same it seemed, or mystery made it seem,
As those before beholden; but St. Mark
Ruled here the ways that showed it like a dream
Out of the dark.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

TO CATULLUS

My brother, my Valerius, dearest head

Of all whose crowning bay-leaves crown their mother,
Rome, in the notes first heard of thine I read
My brother.

No dust that death or time can strew may smother
Love and the sense of kinship inly bred

From loves and hates at one with one another.

To thee was Cæsar's self nor dear nor dread,
Song and the sea were sweeter each than other:
How should I living fear to call thee dead
My brother?

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Dead and gone, the days we had together,
Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone

Round them, flown as flies the blown-foam's feather,
Dead and gone.

Where we went, we twain, in time foregone,
Forth by land and sea, and cared not whether,
If I go again, I go alone.

Bound am I with time as with a tether;
Thee perchance death leads enfranchised on,
Far from deathlike life and changeful weather,
Dead and gone.

II

Above the sea and sea-washed town we dwelt,
We twain together, two brief summers, free
From heed of hours as light as clouds that melt
Above the sea.

Free from all heed of aught at all were we,
Save chance of change that clouds or sunbeams dealt
And gleam of heaven to windward or to lee.

The Norman downs with bright gray waves for belt
Were more for us than inland ways might be;
A clearer sense of nearer heaven was felt

Above the sea.

III

Cliffs and downs and headlands which the forward-hasting
Flight of dawn and eve empurples and embrowns,
Wings of wild sea-winds and stormy seasons wasting
Cliffs and downs,

These, or ever man was, were: the same sky frowns,
Laughs, and lightens, as before his soul, forecasting
Times to be, conceived such hopes as time discrowns.

These we loved of old: but now for me the blasting Breath of death makes dull the bright small seaward towns, Clothes with human change these all but everlasting

Cliffs and downs.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

TWO PRELUDES

I

Lohengrin

Love, out of the depth of things,
As a dewfall felt from above,
From the heaven whence only springs
Love-

Love, heard from the heights thereof,
The clouds and the watersprings,

Draws close as the clouds remove.

And the soul in it speaks and sings,
A swan sweet-souled as a dove,
An echo that only rings

Love.

II

Tristan und Isolde

Fate out of the deep sea's gloom,
When a man's heart's pride grows great,
And nought seems now to foredoom

Fate,

Fate, laden with fears in wait,

Draws close through the clouds that loom,
Till the soul see, all too late,

More dark than a dead world's tomb,
More high than the sheer dawn's gate,

More deep than the wide sea's womb,
Fate.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A ROUNDEL

(1915)

A year ago were love and mirth

And Youth's gay, careless flow;
For him flamed Life in all its ardent worth,
A year ago.

Love came with her enchanting glow,

And doubly blessed his happy birth;
Yet those the gods love-Well, we know!

Beneath a nameless mound of earth
He lies, where daisies grow,

Leaving a void in hearts that knew no dearth
A year ago.

Arthur Compton-Rickett

BETWEEN THE SHOWERS

Between the showers I went my way,

The glistening street was bright with flowers; It seemed that March had turned to May.

Between the showers.

Above the shining roofs and towers

The blue broke forth athwart the grey;

Birds carolled in their leafless bowers,

Hither and thither, swift and gay,

The people chased the changeful hours; And you, you passed and smiled that day, Between the showers.

Amy Levy

STRAW IN THE STREET

Straw in the street where I pass to-day Dulls the sound of the wheels and feet. 'Tis for a failing life they lay

Straw in the street.

Here, where the pulses of London beat,
Someone strives with the Presence grey,
Ah, is it victory or defeat?

The hurrying people go their way,
Pause and jostle and pass and greet;
For life, for death, are they treading, say,
Straw in the street?

Amy Levy

A ROUNDEL OF REST

If rest is sweet at shut of day

For tired hands and tired feet, How sweet at last to rest for aye, If rest is sweet!

We work or work not through the heat:
Death bids us soon our labours lay
In lands where night and twilight meet.

When the last dawns are fallen on grey
And all life's toils and ease complete,
They know who work, not they who play,
If rest is sweet.

Arthur Symons