Freedom

Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are the days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year's ill,
And prayer to purify the new year's will:
Fit days, ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,
Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste,
And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed
The ardent summer's joy to have and taste;
Fit days, to give to last year's losses heed,
To reckon clear the new life's sterner need;
Fit days, for Feast of Expiation placed!

What d'ye think, lad; what d'ye think,
As the roaring crowds go by?
As the banners flare and the brasses blare
And the great guns rend the sky?
As the women laugh like they'd all gone mad,
And the champagne glasses clink:
Oh, you're grippin' me hand so tightly, lad,
I'm a-wonderin': what d'ye think?

D'ye think o' the boys we used to know,
And how they'd have topped the fun?
Tom and Charlie, and Jack and Joe -
Gone now, every one.
How they'd have cheered as the joy-bells chime,
And they grabbed each girl for a kiss!
And now - they're rottin' in Flanders slime,
And they gave their lives - for this.

Or else d'ye think of the many a time
We wished we too was dead,
Up to our knees in the freezin' grime,
With the fires of hell overh...

Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding
With the eyes of a lover, the face of the sun;
Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding
The green-growing acres with increase begun.

Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying
'Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field;
Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing
On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed.

From township to township, o'er down and by tillage
Fair, far have we wandered and long was the day;
But now cometh eve at the end of the village,
Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey.

There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us
The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about;
The moon's rim is rising, a star glitters o'er us,

Not only on cross and gibbet,
By sword, and fire, and flood,
Have perished the world’s sad martyrs
Whose names are writ in blood.

A woman lay in a hovel,
Mean, dismal, gasping for breath;
One friend alone was beside her,
The name of him was, Death.

For the sake of her orphan children,
For money to buy them food,
She had slaved in the dismal hovel
And wasted her womanhood.

Winter and Spring and Summer
Came each with a load of cares;
And Autumn to her brought only
A harvest of gray hairs.

Far out in the blessèd country,
Beyond the smoky town,
The winds of God were blowing
Evermore up and down;

The trees were waving signals
Of joy from the bush beyond;
The gum its blue-green banner,
The fern its dar...

Agen I'll take my idle pen
And sing my bonny mountain maid--
Sweet Phoebe of the Scottish glen,
Nor of her censure feel afraid.
I'll charm her ear with beauty's praise,
And please her eye with songs agen--
The ballads of our early days--
To Phoebe of the Scottish glen.

There never was a fairer thing
All Scotland's glens and mountains through.
The siller gowans of the Spring,
Besprent with pearls of mountain dew,
The maiden blush upon the brere,
Far distant from the haunts of men,
Are nothing half so sweet or dear
As Phoebe of the Scottish glen.

How handsome is her naked foot,
Moist with the pearls of Summer dew:
The siller daisy's nothing to 't,
Nor hawthorn flowers so white to view,
She's sweeter than the blooming brere,
T...

Life, believe, is not a dream
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?
Rapidly, merrily,
Life's sunny hours flit by,
Gratefully, cheerily
Enjoy them as they fly!
What though Death at times steps in,
And calls our Best away?
What though sorrow seems to win,
O'er hope, a heavy sway?
Yet Hope again elastic springs,
Unconquered, though she fell;
Still buoyant are her golden wings,
Still strong to bear us well.
Manfully, fearlessly,
The day of trial bear,
For gloriously, victoriously,
Can courage quell despair!

I.

Long vollies of wind and of rain
And the rain on the drizzled pane,
And the eve falls chill and murk;
But on yesterday's eve I know
How a horned moon's thorn-like bow
Stabbed rosy thro' gold and thro' glow,
Like a rich barbaric dirk.


II.

Now thick throats of the snapdragons, -
Who hold in their hues cool dawns,
Which a healthy yellow paints, -
Are filled with a sweet rain fine
Of a jaunty, jubilant shine,
A faery vat of rare wine,
Which the honey thinly taints.


III.

Now dabble the poppies shrink,
And the coxcomb and the pink;
While the candytuft's damp crown
Droops dribbled, low bowed i' the wet;
And long spikes o' the mignonette
Little musk-sacks open set,
Which the dripping o' de...

Written on SUNDAY MORNING.

    Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
    I to the Woodlands wend, and there
In lovely Nature see the GOD OF LOVE.
    The swelling organ's peal
    Wakes not my soul to zeal,
Like the wild music of the wind-swept grove.
The gorgeous altar and the mystic vest
Rouse not such ardor in my breast,
    As where the noon-tide beam
    Flash'd from the broken stream,
Quick vibrates on the dazzled sight;
    Or where the cloud-suspended rain
    Sweeps in shadows o'er the plain;
Or when reclining on the clift's huge height
I mark the billows burst in silver light.

    Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
    I to the Woodlands shall repair,
    Feed with all Natures charms mine eyes,
    And hear all Natures m...

(Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909)



I

In this fair niche above the unslumbering sea,
That sentrys up and down all night, all day,
From cove to promontory, from ness to bay,
    The Fates have fitly bidden that he should be Pillowed eternally.

II

- It was as though a garland of red roses
Had fallen about the hood of some smug nun
When irresponsibly dropped as from the sun,
In fulth of numbers freaked with musical closes,
Upon Victoria's formal middle time
    His leaves of rhythm and rhyme.

III

O that far morning of a summer day
When, down a terraced street whose pavements lay
Glassing the sunshine into my bent eyes,
I walked and read with a quick glad surprise
    New words, in classic guise, -

My thoughts, my grief! are without strength
My spirit is journeying towards death
My eyes are as a frozen sea
My tears my daily food;
There is nothing in life but only misery.
My poor heart is torn
And my thoughts are sharp wounds within me,
Mourning the miserable state of Ireland.

Misfortune has come upon us all together
The poor, the rich, the weak and the strong
The great lord by whom hundreds were maintained
The powerful strong man, and the man that holds the plough;
And the cross laid on the bare shoulder of every man.

Our feasts are without any voice of priests
And none at them but women lamenting
Tearing their hair with troubled minds
Keening miserably after the Fenians.

The pipes of our organs are broken
Our harps have lost ...

Oh, what is so pure as the glad summer rain,
That falls on the grass where the sunlight has lain?
And what is so fair as the flowers that lie
All bathed in the tears of the soft summer sky?

The blue of the heavens is dimmed by the rain
That wears away sorrow and washes out pain;
But we know that the flowers we cherish would die
Were it not for the tears of the cloud-laden sky.

The rose is the sweeter when kissed by the rain,
And hearts are the dearer where sorrow has lain;
The sky is the fairer that rain-clouds have swept,
And no eyes are so bright as the eyes that have wept.

Oh, they are so happy, these flowers that die,
They laugh in the sunshine, oh, why cannot I?
They droop in the shadow, they smile in the sun,
Yet they die in the winter when ...

Under the bare brown rafters,
    In his garret bed he lay,
And dreamed of the bright hereafters.
    And the merry morns of May.

The snow-flakes slowly sifted
    In through each cranny and seam,
But only the sunshine drifted
    Into the news-boy's dream.

For he dreamed of the brave to-morrows,
    His eager eyes should scan,
When battling with wants and sorrows,
    He felt himself a Man.

He felt his heart grow bolder
    For the struggle and the strife,
When shoulder joined to shoulder,
    In the battle-field of life.

And instead of the bare brown rafters,
    And the snowflakes sifting in,
He saw in the glad hereafters,
    The home his hands should win.

The flowers that grew in its shadow,
    And t...

    Children of Fate, in the same breath
    Created were they, Love and Death.
    Such fair creations ne'er were seen,
    Or here below, or in the heaven serene.
    The first, the source of happiness,
    The fount whence flows the greatest bliss
    That in the sea of being e'er is found;
    The last each sorrow gently lulls,
    Each harsh decree of Fate annuls.
    Fair child with beauty crowned,
    Sweet to behold, not such
    As cowards paint her in their fright,
    She in young Love's companionship
    Doth often take delight,
    As they o'er mortal paths together fly,
    Chief comforters of every loyal heart.
    Nor ever is the heart more wise
    Than when Love smites it, nor defies
    More scornfully life's misery,
    And f...

I

Fair Lady, whose harmonious name the Rheno
    Through all his grassy vale delights to hear,
    Base were, indeed, the wretch, who could forbear
    To love a spirit elegant as thine,
That manifests a sweetness all divine,
    Nor knows a thousand winning acts to spare,
    And graces, which Love's bow and arrows are,
    Temp'ring thy virtues to a softer shine.
When gracefully thou speak'st, or singest gay
    Such strains as might the senseless forest move,
    Ah then--turn each his eyes and ears away,
Who feels himself unworthy of thy love!
    Grace can alone preserve him, e'er the dart
    Of fond desire yet reach his inmost heart.

II

As on a hill-top rude, when closing day
    Imbrowns the scene, some past'ral maiden fair
...

Know this, my brethren, Heaven is clear
And all the clouds are gone,
The Proper Sort shall flourish now,
Good times are coming on",
The evil that was threatened late
To all of our degree
Hath passed in discord and debate,
And,Hey then up go we!

A common people strove in vain
To shame us unto toil,
But they are spent and we remain,
And we shall share the spoil
According to our several needs
As Beauty shall decree,
As Age ordains or Birth concedes,
And, Hey then up go we!

And they that with accursed zeal
Our Service would amend,
Shall own the odds and come to heel
Ere worse befall their end:
For though no naked word be wrote
Yet plainly shall they see
What pinneth Orders on their coat,
And, Hey then up go we!
<...

If these brief Records, by the Muses' art
Produced as lonely Nature or the strife
That animates the scenes of public life
Inspired, may in thy leisure claim a part;
And if these Transcripts of the private heart
Have gained a sanction from thy falling tears;
Then I repent not. But my soul hath fears
Breathed from eternity; for, as a dart
Cleaves the blank air, Life flies: now every day
Is but a glimmering spoke in the swift wheel
Of the revolving week. Away, away,
All fitful cares, all transitory zeal!
So timely Grace the immortal wing may heal,
And honour rest upon the senseless clay.

On rainy days old dreams arise,
    From graves where they have lonely lain;
With wan white cheeks and mournful eyes,
    They press against the window pane.
One dream is bolder than the rest:
    She enters at the door and stays,
A welcome yet unbidden guest
    On rainy days.

On rainy days, my dream and I
    Turn back the hands of memory's books:
We sup on pleasures long gone by -
    We drink of unforgotten brooks;
We ransack garrets of the Past,
    We sing old songs, we play old plays;
While hurrying Time looks on aghast,
    On rainy days.

On rainy days, my ghostly dreams
    Come clothed in garments like the mist,
But through that vapoury veiling, gleams
    The lustrous eyes my lips have kissed.
A radiant head leans on ...

Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length at length after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
I feel ye now I feel ye in your strength
O spells more sure than e'er Judæan king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight v...