A curated selection of verse from one of English poetry's most distinctive voices, Algernon Charles Swinburne. Next to Tennyson and Browning, he was one of the major poets of the Victorian era—and almost certainly the most provocative.
This new selection represents Swinburne's first major collection, the Poems and Ballads of 1866, more fully than in earlier selections, and ample extracts are given from his later masterpiece, the Arthurian epic Tristram of Lyonesse (1882). This edition also includes generous passages from the best of Swinburne's five-act tragedies, Chastelard and Bothwell, which have not been reprinted for nearly a century. This edition is for students and general readers of English literature, poetry enthusiasts, and those interested in the Victorian and Decadent movements.
A curated selection of verse from one of English poetry's most distinctive voices, Algernon Charles Swinburne. Next to Tennyson and Browning, he was one of the major poets of the Victorian era—and almost certainly the most provocative.
This new selection represents Swinburne's first major collection, the Poems and Ballads of 1866, more fully than in earlier selections, and ample extracts are given from his later masterpiece, the Arthurian epic Tristram of Lyonesse (1882). This edition also includes generous passages from the best of Swinburne's five-act tragedies, Chastelard and Bothwell, which have not been reprinted for nearly a century. This edition is for students and general readers of English literature, poetry enthusiasts, and those interested in the Victorian and Decadent movements.
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Overview
A curated selection of verse from one of English poetry's most distinctive voices, Algernon Charles Swinburne. Next to Tennyson and Browning, he was one of the major poets of the Victorian era—and almost certainly the most provocative.
This new selection represents Swinburne's first major collection, the Poems and Ballads of 1866, more fully than in earlier selections, and ample extracts are given from his later masterpiece, the Arthurian epic Tristram of Lyonesse (1882). This edition also includes generous passages from the best of Swinburne's five-act tragedies, Chastelard and Bothwell, which have not been reprinted for nearly a century. This edition is for students and general readers of English literature, poetry enthusiasts, and those interested in the Victorian and Decadent movements.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781784100421 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | FyfieldBooks |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2015 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 448 |
| File size: | 529 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Selected Verse
By A. C. Swinburne, Alex Wong
Carcanet Press Ltd
Copyright © 2015 Alex WongAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78410-042-1
CHAPTER 1
From ATALANTA IN CALYDON (1865)
The First Choral Song
When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, 65 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 amorous Is half assuaged for Itylus, 70 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, 75 With a clamour of waters, and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendour 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. 80
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 85 As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her, And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.
For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows, and sins; 90 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 95 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, 100 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, 105 Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid, Follows with dancing and fills with delight The Maenad and the Bassarid; And soft as lips that laugh and hide The laughing leaves of the trees divide, 110 And screen from seeing and leave in sight The god pursuing, the maiden hid.
The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair Over her eyebrows hiding her eyes; The wild vine slipping down leaves bare 115 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 The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies. 120
Althaea's Scorn of Prayer
Night, a black hound, follows the white fawn day, 125 Swifter than dreams the white flown feet of sleep; Will ye pray back the night with any prayers? And though the spring put back a little while Winter, and snows that plague all men for sin, And the iron time of cursing, yet I know 130 Spring shall be ruined with the rain, and storm Eat up like fire the ashen autumn days. I marvel what men do with prayers awake Who dream and die with dreaming; any god, Yea the least god of all things called divine, 135 Is more than sleep and waking; yet we say, Perchance by praying a man shall match his god. For if sleep have no mercy, and man's dreams Bite to the blood and burn into the bone, What shall this man do waking? By the gods, 140 He shall not pray to dream sweet things to-night, Having dreamt once more bitter things than death.
The Second Choral Song
Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man 315 Time, with a gift of tears, Grief, with a glass that ran; Pleasure, with pain for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance fallen from heaven, 320 And madness risen from hell; Strength without hands to smite, Love that endures for a breath, Night, the shadow of light, And life, the shadow of death. 325 And the high gods took in hand Fire, and the falling of tears, And a measure of sliding sand From under the feet of the years, And froth and drift of the sea; 330 And dust of the labouring 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, 335 With life before and after And death beneath and above, For a day and a night and a morrow, That his strength might endure for a span With travail and heavy sorrow, 340 The holy spirit of man.
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; 345 Eyesight and speech they wrought For the veils of the soul therein, A time for labour and thought, A time to serve and to sin; They gave him light in his ways, 350 And love, and a space for delight, And beauty and length of days, And night, and sleep in the night. His speech is a burning fire; With his lips he travaileth, 355 In his heart is a blind desire, In his eyes foreknowledge of death; He weaves, and is clothed with derision; Sows, and he shall not reap, His life is a watch or a vision 360 Between a sleep and a sleep.
Meleager rejects his Mother's Counsel concerning Atalanta
O mother, I am not fain to strive in speech Nor set my mouth against thee, who art wise Even as they say and full of sacred words. But one thing I know surely, and cleave to this; That though I be not subtle of wit as thou 575 Nor womanlike to weave sweet words, and melt Mutable minds of wise men as with fire, I too, doing justly and reverencing the gods, Shall not want wit to see what things be right. For whom they love and whom reject, being gods, 580 There is no man but seeth, and in good time Submits himself, refraining all his heart. And I too as thou sayest have seen great things; Seen otherwhere, but chiefly when the sail First caught between stretched ropes the roaring west, 585 And all our oars smote eastward, and the wind First flung round faces of seafaring men White splendid snow-flakes of the sundering foam, And the first furrow in virginal green sea Followed the plunging ploughshare of hewn pine, 590 And closed, as when deep sleep subdues man's breath Lips close and heart subsides; and closing, shone Sunlike with many a Nereid's hair, and moved Round many a trembling mouth of doubtful gods, Risen out of sunless and sonorous gulfs 595 Through waning water and into shallow light, That watched us; and when flying the dove was snared As with men's hands, but we shot after and sped Clear through the irremeable Symplegades; And chiefliest when hoar beach and herbless cliff 600 Stood out ahead from Colchis, and we heard Clefts hoarse with wind, and saw through narrowing reefs The lightning of the intolerable wave Flash, and the white wet flame of breakers burn Far under a kindling south-wind, as a lamp 605 Burns and bends all its blowing flame one way; Wild heights untravelled of the wind, and vales Cloven seaward by their violent streams, and white With bitter flowers and bright salt scurf of brine; Heard sweep their sharp swift gales, and bowing bird-wise 610 Shriek with birds' voices, and with furious feet Tread loose the long skirts of a storm; and saw The whole white Euxine clash together and fall Full-mouthed, and thunderous from a thousand throats; Yet we drew thither and won the fleece and won 615 Medea, deadlier than the sea; but there Seeing many a wonder and fearful things to men I saw not one thing like this one seen here, Most fair and fearful, feminine, a god, Faultless; whom I that love not, being unlike, 620 Fear, and give honour, and choose from all the gods.
The Fourth Choral Song
Who hath given man speech? or who hath set therein A thorn for peril and a snare for sin? For in the word his life is and his breath, 1040 And in the word his death, That madness and the infatuate heart may breed From the word's womb the deed And life bring one thing forth ere all pass by, Even one thing which is ours yet cannot die — 1045 Death. Hast thou seen him ever anywhere, Time's twin-born brother, imperishable as he Is perishable and plaintive, clothed with care And mutable as sand, But death is strong and full of blood and fair 1050 And perdurable and like a lord of land? Nay, time thou seest not, death thou wilt not see Till life's right hand be loosened from thine hand And thy life-days from thee. For the gods very subtly fashion 1055 Madness with sadness upon earth: Not knowing in any wise compassion, Nor holding pity of any worth; And many things they have given and taken, And wrought and ruined many things; 1060 The firm land have they loosed and shaken, And sealed the sea with all her springs; They have wearied time with heavy burdens And vexed the lips of life with breath: Set men to labour and given them guerdons, 1065 Death, and great darkness after death: Put moans into the bridal measure And on the bridal wools a stain, And circled pain about with pleasure, And girdled pleasure about with pain; 1070 And strewed one marriage-bed with tears and fire For extreme loathing and supreme desire.
What shall be done with all these tears of ours? Shall they make watersprings in the fair heaven To bathe the brows of morning? or like flowers 1075 Be shed and shine before the starriest hours, Or made the raiment of the weeping Seven? Or rather, O our masters, shall they be Food for the famine of the grievous sea, A great well-head of lamentation 1080 Satiating the sad gods? or fall and flow Among the years and seasons to and fro, And wash their feet with tribulation And fill them full with grieving ere they go? Alas, our lords, and yet alas again, 1085 Seeing all your iron heaven is gilt as gold But all we smite thereat in vain, Smite the gates barred with groanings manifold,
But all the floors are paven with our pain. Yea, and with weariness of lips and eyes, 1090 With breaking of the bosom, and with sighs, We labour, and are clad and fed with grief And filled with days we would not fain behold And nights we would not hear of, we wax old, All we wax old and wither like a leaf. 1095 We are outcast, strayed between bright sun and moon; Our light and darkness are as leaves of flowers, Black flowers and white, that perish; and the noon As midnight, and the night as daylight hours. A little fruit a little while is ours, 1100 And the worm finds it soon.
But up in heaven the high gods one by one Lay hands upon the draught that quickeneth, Fulfilled with all tears shed and all things done, And stir with soft imperishable breath 1105 The bubbling bitterness of life and death, And hold it to our lips and laugh; but they
Preserve their lips from tasting night or day, Lest they too change and sleep, the fates that spun, The lips that made us and the hands that slay; 1110 Lest all these change, and heaven bow down to none, Change and be subject to the secular sway And terrene revolution of the sun. Therefore they thrust it from them, putting time away.
I would the wine of time, made sharp and sweet 1115 With multitudinous days and nights and tears And many mixing savours of strange years, Were no more trodden of them under feet, Cast out and spilt about their holy places: That life were given them as a fruit to eat 1120 And death to drink as water; that the light Might ebb, drawn backward from their eyes, and night Hide for one hour the imperishable faces. That they might rise up sad in heaven, and know Sorrow and sleep, one paler than young snow, 1125 One cold as blight of dew and ruinous rain; Rise up and rest and suffer a little, and be Awhile as all things born with us and we, And grieve as men, and like slain men be slain.
For now we know not of them; but one saith 1130 The gods are gracious, praising God; and one, When hast thou seen? or hast thou felt his breath Touch, nor consume thine eyelids as the sun, Nor fill thee to the lips with fiery death? None hath beheld him, none 1135 Seen above other gods and shapes of things, Swift without feet and flying without wings, Intolerable, not clad with death or life, Insatiable, not known of night or day, The lord of love and loathing and of strife 1140 Who gives a star and takes a sun away; Who shapes the soul, and makes her a barren wife To the earthly body and grievous growth of clay; Who turns the large limbs to a little flame
And binds the great sea with a little sand; 1145 Who makes desire, and slays desire with shame; Who shakes the heaven as ashes in his hand; Who, seeing the light and shadow for the same, Bids day waste night as fire devours a brand, Smites without sword, and scourges without rod; 1150 The supreme evil, God.
Yea, with thine hate, O God, thou hast covered us, One saith, and hidden our eyes away from sight, And made us transitory and hazardous, Light things and slight; 1155 Yet have men praised thee, saying, He hath made man thus, And he doeth right. Thou hast kissed us, and hast smitten; thou hast laid Upon us with thy left hand life, and said, Live: and again thou hast said, Yield up your breath, 1160 And with thy right hand laid upon us death. Thou hast sent us sleep, and stricken sleep with dreams, Saying, Joy is not, but love of joy shall be;
Thou hast made sweet springs for all the pleasant streams, In the end thou hast made them bitter with the sea. 1165 Thou hast fed one rose with dust of many men; Thou hast marred one face with fire of many tears; Thou hast taken love, and given us sorrow again; With pain thou hast filled us full to the eyes and ears. Therefore because thou art strong, our father, and we 1170 Feeble; and thou art against us, and thine hand Constrains us in the shallows of the sea And breaks us at the limits of the land; Because thou hast bent thy lightnings as a bow, And loosed the hours like arrows; and let fall 1175 Sins and wild words and many a winged woe And wars among us, and one end of all; Because thou hast made the thunder, and thy feet Are as a rushing water when the skies
Break, but thy face as an exceeding heat 1180 And flames of fire the eyelids of thine eyes; Because thou art over all who are over us; Because thy name is life and our name death; Because thou art cruel and men are piteous, And our hands labour and thine hand scattereth; 1185 Lo, with hearts rent and knees made tremulous, Lo, with ephemeral lips and casual breath, At least we witness of thee ere we die That these things are not otherwise, but thus; That each man in his heart sigheth, and saith, 1190 That all men even as I, All we are against thee, against thee, O God most high. But ye, keep ye on earth Your lips from over-speech, Loud words and longing are so little worth; 1195 And the end is hard to reach. For silence after grievous things is good, And reverence, and the fear that makes men whole, And shame, and righteous governance of blood, And lordship of the soul. 1200 But from sharp words and wits men pluck no fruit, And gathering thorns they shake the tree at root;
For words divide and rend; But silence is most noble till the end.
The Herald reports the Slaying of the Boar
These having halted bade blow horns, and rode 1260 Through woods and waste lands cleft by stormy streams, Past yew-trees and the heavy hair of pines, And where the dew is thickest under oaks, This way and that; but questing up and down They saw no trail nor scented; and one said, 1265 Plexippus, Help, or help not, Artemis, And we will flay thy boarskin with male hands; But saying, he ceased and said not that he would, Seeing where the green ooze of a sun-struck marsh Shook with a thousand reeds untunable, 1270 And in their moist and multitudinous flower Slept no soft sleep, with violent visions fed, The blind bulk of the immeasurable beast. And seeing, he shuddered with sharp lust of praise Through all his limbs, and launched a double dart, 1275 And missed; for much desire divided him, Too hot of spirit and feebler than his will, That his hand failed, though fervent; and the shaft, Sundering the rushes, in a tamarisk stem Shook, and stuck fast; then all abode save one, 1280 The Arcadian Atalanta; from her side Sprang her hounds, labouring at the leash, and slipped, And plashed ear-deep with plunging feet; but she Saying, Speed it as I send it for thy sake, Goddess, drew bow and loosed, the sudden string 1285 Rang, and sprang inward, and the waterish air Hissed, and the moist plumes of the songless reeds Moved as a wave which the wind moves no more. But the boar heaved half out of ooze and slime His tense flank trembling round the barbed wound, 1290 Hateful, and fiery with invasive eyes And bristling with intolerable hair Plunged, and the hounds clung, and green flowers and white Reddened and broke all round them where they came. And charging with sheer tusk he drove, and smote 1295 Hyleus; and sharp death caught his sudden soul, And violent sleep shed night upon his eyes. Then Peleus, with strong strain of hand and heart, Shot; but the sidelong arrow slid, and slew His comrade born and loving countryman, 1300 Under the left arm smitten, as he no less Poised a like arrow; and bright blood brake afoam, And falling, and weighed back by clamorous arms, Sharp rang the dead limbs of Eurytion. Then one shot happier; the Cadmean seer, 1305 Amphiaraus; for his sacred shaft Pierced the red circlet of one ravening eye Beneath the brute brows of the sanguine boar, Now bloodier from one slain; but he so galled Sprang straight, and rearing cried no lesser cry 1310 Than thunder and the roar of wintering streams
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Selected Verse by A. C. Swinburne, Alex Wong. Copyright © 2015 Alex Wong. Excerpted by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements,Introduction,
From ATALANTA IN CALYDON (1865),
From CHASTELARD (1865),
From POEMS AND BALLADS, FIRST SERIES (1866),
From SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE (1871),
From BOTHWELL (1874),
From POEMS AND BALLADS, SECOND SERIES (1878),
From STUDIES IN SONG (1880),
From TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE (1882),
From A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS (1883),
From A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY AND OTHER POEMS (1884),
From POEMS AND BALLADS, THIRD SERIES (1889),
From ASTROPHEL AND OTHER POEMS (1894),
From A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS (1904),
The Lake of Gaube,
Roundel,
Introductory Notes to the Longer Works,
Explanatory Notes,
Further Reading,
Index of Titles and First Lines,