DRAWING NEAR THE LIGHT (From Poems by the Way, 1892) But looking up, at last we see From o'er the place where we would be: So now, amidst our day of strife, Algernon Charles Swinburne 1837-1909 CHORUS (From Atalanta in Calydon, 1865) 10 What hadst thou to do being born, Mother, when winds were at ease, As a flower of the springtime of corn, A flower of the foam of the seas? For bitter thou wast from thy birth, Aphrodite, a mother of strife; For before thee some rest was on earth, A little respite from tears, A little pleasure of life: For life was not then as thou art, But as one that waxeth in years Earth had no thorn and desire What hadst thou to do amongst these, 10 15 45 No sting, neither death any dart; 50 Her bright breast shortening into sighs; The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves, But the berried ivy catches and cleaves To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare 55 The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies. CHORUS (From the same) 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. 2 Bassarid (Gr. Baooápa), and Manad, are names for a bacchante,-a priestess of Bacchus, or a woman who joined in the festivals of Bacchus and who was inspired with the bacchic frenzy. As a brand plucked forth of a pyre, As a ray shed forth of the morn, For division of soul and disease, For a dart and a sting and a thorn? What ailed thee then to be born? Was there not evil enough, Mother, and anguish on earth Born with a man at his birth, Wastes underfoot, and above Storm out of heaven, and dearth Shaken down from the shining thereof, Wrecks from afar over seas And tears that spring and increase That thou must come after these, That thou must lay on him love? Thou shouldst not so have been born: But death should have risen with thee, Mother, and visible fear, Grief, and wringing of hands, And noise of many that mourn; A moan as of people in prison, And thunder of storm on the sands, And wailing of wives on the shore; And under thee newly arisen Loud shoals and shipwrecking reefs, Sail rent and sundering oar, Darkness, and noises of night; Clashing of streams in the sea, Wave against wave as a sword, Clamour of currents, and foam; Rains making ruin on earth; Winds that wax ravenous and roam As wolves in a wolfish horde; Fruits growing faint in the tree, And blind things dead in their birth: Famine and blighting of corn, When thy time was come to be born. THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE1 I watch the green field growing I am tired of tears and laughter, For men that sow to reap: I am weary of days and hours, Here life hath death for neighbour, 5 10 15 20 1 Proserpine was the child of Demeter, the motherearth. While gathering flowers in the Sicilian fields, she was caught up and carried off by Pluto, king of the Infernal regions, who made her queen of the lower realm, of darkness and death. She was afterwards permitted to leave the Shades for a part of each year and to visit Olympus. She typifies the corn, or grain, which passes from the dark prison in the earth to light, and leaves the light to return again to darkness. In this poem, Swinburne pictures the world as her garden, a place presided over by the Queen of the kingdom of darkness, a spot from which life is continually being carried off to the dark region of oblivion. And love, grown faint and fretful, From too much love of living, Winds somewhere safe to sea. Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any sound or sight: In an eternal night. PASTICHE1 (From Poems and Ballads, 1878) Blown adrift through beam and breeze. Now the nights are all past over Now the morning faintlier risen Now hath hope, outraced in running A FORSAKEN GARDEN1 80 85 90 95 5 10 15 20 In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. 1 Pastiche (or pasticcio) is the French word for a medley, or a work in imitation of the style of several masters. 1 The scene of this poem is said to be East Dene, Bonchurch, in the Isle of Wight. For the foam-flowers endure when the roseblossoms wither, And men that love lightly may die-But we?" And the same wind sang, and the same waves whitened, 45 And or ever the garden's last petals were shed, In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened, Love was dead. |