SWINBURNE A SONG IN TIME OF ORDER 1852 PUSH hard across the sand, For the salt wind gathers breath; Shoulder and wrist and hand, Push hard as the push of death. The wind is as iron that rings, The foam-heads loosen and flee; It swells and welters and swings, The pulse of the tide of the sea. And up on the yellow cliff The long corn flickers and shakes; Push, for the wind holds stiff, And the gunwale dips and rakes. Good hap to the fresh fierce weather, The quiver and beat of the sea! While three men hold together The kingdoms are less by three. Out to the sea with her there, Out with her over the sand, Let the kings keep the earth for their share ! We have done with the sharers of land. They have tied the world in a tether, They have bought over God with a fee; While three men hold together, The kingdoms are less by three. We have done with the kisses that sting, The thief's mouth red from the feast, The blood on the hands of the king, And the lie at the lips of the priest. Will they tie the winds in a tether, Put a bit in the jaws of the sea? While three men hold together, The kingdoms are less by three. Let our flag run out straight in the wind! The old red shall be floated again When the ranks that are thin shall be thinned, When the names that were twenty are ten; When the devil's riddle is mastered And the galley-bench creaks with a We shall see Buonaparte the bastard Kick heels with his throat in a rope. While the shepherd sets wolves on his sheep And the emperor halters his Kine, While Shame is a watchman asleep And Faith is a keeper of swine. Let the wind shake our flag like a feather, Like the plumes of the foam of the sea! While three men hold together, The kingdoms are less by three. All the world has its burdens to bear, From Cayenne to the Austrian whips; Forth, with the rain in our hair And the salt sweet foam in our lips: In the teeth of the hard glad weather, In the blown wet face of the sea; While three men hold together, The kingdoms are less by three. 1862. CHORUSES FROM ATALANTA IN CALYDON THE YOUTH OF THE YEAR WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, The mother of months in meadow or plain Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; And the brown bright nightingale amor ous Is half assuaged for Itylus, For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, The tongueless vigil, and all the pain. Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect, lady of light, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamor of waters, and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendor and speed of thy feet; For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, Fold our hands round her knees, and cling? O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her, Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring! For the stars and the winds are unto her As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her, And the southwest-wind and the westwind sing. For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. The full streams feed on flower of rushes, Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot, The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes From leaf to flower and flower to fruit; And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire, And the oat is heard above the lyre, And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushes The chestnut-husk at the chestnut root. And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night, Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid, Follows with dancing and fills with delight And the high gods took in hand From under the feet of the years; And dust of the laboring earth; And bodies of things to be In the houses of death and of birth; And wrought with weeping and laughter And fashioned with loathing and love, With life before and after And death beneath and above, With travail and heavy sorrow, From the winds of the north and the south They gathered as unto strife; They breathed upon his mouth, They filled his body with life; We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair; thou art goodly, O Love; Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove. Thy feet are as winds that divide the stream of the sea; Earth is thy covering to hide thee, the garment of thee. Thou art swift and subtle and blind as a flame of fire; Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire; And twain go forth beside thee, a man with a maid; Her eyes are the eyes of a bride whom delight makes afraid; As the breath in the buds that stir is her bridal breath: But Fate is the name of her; and his name is Death. NATURE O that I now, I too were By deep wells and water-floods, Pale as grass or latter flowers, Shine, and many a maid's by thee Or in lower pools that see All their marges clothed all round Toward him, even as thine heart now Thine, O goddess, turning hither And lives withered as leaves wither Herds and harvest slain and shed, For not seldom, when all air Good with bad, and overbear As ye long since overbore, Many a strong man and a great, But do thou, sweet, otherwise, FATE Not as with sundering of the earth And broken out of night, she shone, She, without body, without name, In days forgotten and foregone; And heaven rang round her as she came Like smitten cymbals, and lay bare; Clouds and great stars, thunders and Shall the waves take pity on thee Or the south-wind offer thee love? Wilt thou take the night for thy day Or the darkness for light on thy way Till thou say in thine heart, Enough? Behold, thou art over fair, thou art over wise: The sweetness of spring in thine hair, and the light in thine eyes. The light of the spring in thine eyes, and the sound in thine ears; Yet thine heart shall wax heavy with sighs and thine eyelids with tears. Wilt thou cover thine hair with gold; and with silver thy feet? Hast thou taken the purple to fold thee, and made thy mouth sweet? Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate; Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate. For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain; And the veil of thine head shall be grief; and the crown shall be pain. THE DEATH OF MELEAGER Meleager. Let your hands meet As the feet of the dead; For the flesh of my body is molten, the limbs of it molten as lead. Chorus. O thy luminous face, O the grief, O the grace, As of day when it dies! Who is this bending over thee, lord, with tears and suppression of sighs! Meleager. Is a bride so fair? Is a maid so meek? With unchapleted hair, With unfilleted cheek. Atalanta, the pure among women, whose name is as blessing to speak. Atalanta. I would that with feet, Overbold, overfleet, I had swum not nor trod From Arcadia to Calydon, northward, a blast of the envy of God. Meleager. Unto each man his fate; Unto each as he saith In whose fingers the weight Of the world is as breath; Yet I would that in clamor of battle mine hands had laid hold upon death. Chorus. Not with cleaving of shields Breaketh spearshaft from spear, Thou art broken, our lord, thou art broken, with travail and labor and fear. Meleager. Would God he had found me Chorus. Whence art thou sent from us? How art thou rent from us, As with severing of eyelids and eyes, as with sundering of body and soul! Meleager. My heart is within me As an ash in the fire; Whosoever hath seen me, Without lute, without lyre, Shall sing of me grievous things, even things that were ill to desire. Chorus. Who shall raise thee From the house of the dead? Or what man praise thee That thy praise may be said? Alas thy beauty! alas thy body! alas thine head! Meleager. But thou. O mother, When I move among shadows a shadow, and wail by impassable streams? Eneus. What thing wilt thou leave me A man wilt thou give me, For the light of mine eyes, the desire of my life, the desirable one? Chorus. Thou wert glad above others, For each man that heard Of thee, praise there was added unto thee, as wings to the feet of a bird. Eneus. Who shall give back Mother of sorrow, mother of cursing, mother of tears? Meleager. Though thou art as fire Is more chaste than the rain. More pure than the dewfall, more holy than stars are that live without stain. Atalanta. I would that as water My life's blood had thawn, Or as winter's wan daughter Leaves lowland and lawn Spring-stricken, or ever mine eyes had beheld thee made dark in thy dawn. Chorus. When thou dravest the men None turned him again Nor endured he thy face Clothed round with the blush of the battle, with light from a terrible place. Enens. Thou shouldst die as he dies For whom none sheddeth tears; Filling thine eyes And fulfilling thine ears, With the brilliance of battle, the bloom and the beauty, the splendor of spears. Chorus. In the ears of the world It is sung, it is told, And the light thereof hurled And the noise thereof rolled From the Acroceraunian show to the ford of the fleece of gold. Meleager. Would God ye could carry me By the Chersonese, Where the thundering Bosphorus answers the thunder of Pontic seas. Eneus. Dost thou mock at our praise And the singing begun |