With daffodil and starling And hours of fruitful breath; If you were thrall to sorrow, And laughs of maid and boy; If you were April's lady, And I were lord in May, We'd throw with leaves for hours Till day like night were shady If you were April's lady, If you were queen of pleasure, And find his mouth a rein; Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] A BALLAD OF LIFE I FOUND in dreams a place of wind and flowers, A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours, A Ballad of Life 621 Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon Like a flame rained upon. Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids' blue, She held a little cithern by the strings, Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-colored hair Of some dead lute player That in dead years had done delicious things. The seven strings were named accordingly; The second tenderness, The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin, There were three men with her, each garmented The first man's hair was wound upon his head: Pale stains of dust and rust. A riven hood was pulled across his eyes; The next was Shame, with hollow heavy face They may not well endure in any place. And all his blood's increase Was even increase of pain. The last was Fear, that is akin to Death; He is Shame's friend, and always as Shame saith Fear answers him again. My soul said in me: This is marvelous, If sin and she be kin or amorous. And seeing where maidens served her on their knees, I bade one crave of these To know the cause thereof. Then Fear said: I am Pity that was dead. Thereat her hands began a lute-playing And her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue; And all the while she sung There was no sound but long tears following Long tears upon men's faces, waxen white But those three following men Became as men raised up among the dead; Great glad mouths open, and fair cheeks made red With child's blood come again. Then I said: Now assuredly I see My lady is perfect, and transfigureth Making them fair as her own eyelids be, And bosom carved to kiss. Now therefore, if her pity further me, Forth, ballad, and take roses in both arms, Where the least thornprick harms; And girdled in thy golden singing-coat, Come thou before my lady and say this: A Leave-taking Borgia, thy gold hair's color burns in me, 623 Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes; Therefore so many as these roses be, Kiss me so many times. Then it may be, seeing how sweet she is, That she will stoop herself none otherwise And kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes, Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] A LEAVE-TAKING LET us go hence, my songs; she will not hear. Let us rise up and part; she will not know. And all the world is bitter as a tear, And how these things are, though ye strove to show, Let us go home and hence; she will not weep. Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow, All is reaped now; no grass is left to mow; And we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep, She would not weep. Let us go hence and rest; she will not love. Nor see love's ways how sore they are and steep. Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep; And though she saw all heaven in flower above, Let us give up, go down; she will not care. One moon-flower making all the foam-flowers fair; Let us go hence, go hence; she will not see. She too, remembering days and words that were, Will turn a little towards us, sighing; but we, We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there. Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me, She would not see. Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] A LYRIC THERE'S nae lark loves the lift, my dear, The whin shines fair upon the fell, The muirside wind is merry at heart: Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909] |