Algernon Charles Swinburne Poems

The trumpets of the four winds of the world
From the ends of the earth blow battle; the night heaves,
With breasts palpitating and wings refurled,
With passion of couched limbs, as one who grieves
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TILL death have broken
Sweet life’s love-token,
Till all be spoken
That shall be said,
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The weary day runs down and dies,
The weary night wears through:
And never an hour is fair wi' flower,
And never a flower wi' dew.
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I.

Years upon years, as a course of clouds that thicken
Thronging the ways of the wind that shifts and veers,
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PUSH hard across the sand,
For the salt wind gathers breath;
Shoulder and wrist and hand,
Push hard as the push of death.
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SWEET LIFE, if life were stronger,
Earth clear of years that wrong her,
Then two things might live longer,
Two sweeter things than they;
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Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses,
Is good, or was held so, for ladies: but nought
In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is
Far-fetched and dear-bought.
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Am I not he that hath made thee and begotten thee,
I, God, the spirit of man?
Wherefore now these eighteen years hast thou forgotten me,
From whom thy life began?
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In the month of the long decline of roses
I, beholding the summer dead before me,
Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent,
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By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
Remembering thee,
That for ages of agony hast endured, and slept,
And wouldst not see.
...