Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne—Vol. III — Inside the Classic

And was so feeble and fearful, with soft speech The youth bespake him softly; but there fell From the sweet lips no sweet word audible That ear or thought might reach: No sound to make the dim cold silence glad, No breath to thaw the hard harsh air with heat; Only the saddest smile of all things sweet, Only the sweetest smile of all things sad.

And so they went together one green way Till April dying made free the world for May; And on his guide suddenly Love's face turned, And in his blind eyes burned Hard light and heat of laughter; and like flame That opens in a mountain's ravening mouth To blear and sear the sunlight from the south, His mute mouth opened, and his first word came: 'Knowest thou me now by name?' And all his stature waxed immeasurable, As of one shadowing heaven and lightening hell; And statelier stood he than a tower that stands And darkens with its darkness far-off sands Whereon the sky leans red; And with a voice that stilled the winds he said: 'I am he that was thy lord before thy birth, I am he that is thy lord till thou turn earth: I make the night more dark, and all the morrow Dark as the night whose darkness was my breath: O fool, my name is sorrow; Thou fool, my name is death.'

And he that heard spake not, and looked right on Again, and Love was gone.

Through many a night toward many a wearier day His spirit bore his body down its way. Through many a day toward many a wearier night His soul sustained his sorrows in her sight. And earth was bitter, and heaven, and even the sea Sorrowful even as he. And the wind helped not, and the sun was dumb; And with too long strong stress of grief to be His heart grew sere and numb.

And one bright eve ere summer in autumn sank At stardawn standing on a grey sea-bank He felt the wind fitfully shift and heave As toward a stormier eve; And all the wan wide sea shuddered; and earth Shook underfoot as toward some timeless birth, Intolerable and inevitable; and all Heaven, darkling, trembled like a stricken thrall. And far out of the quivering east, and far From past the moonrise and its guiding star, Began a noise of tempest and a light That was not of the lightning; and a sound Rang with it round and round That was not of the thunder; and a flight As of blown clouds by night, That was not of them; and with songs and cries That sang and shrieked their soul out at the skies A shapeless earthly storm of shapes began From all ways round to move in on the man, Clamorous against him silent; and their feet Were as the wind's are fleet, And their shrill songs were as wild birds' are sweet.

And as when all the world of earth was wronged And all the host of all men driven afoam By the red hand of Rome, Round some fierce amphitheatre overthronged With fair clear faces full of bloodier lust Than swells and stings the tiger when his mood Is fieriest after blood And drunk with trampling of the murderous must That soaks and stains the tortuous close-coiled wood Made monstrous with its myriad-mustering brood, Face by fair face panted and gleamed and pressed, And breast by passionate breast Heaved hot with ravenous rapture, as they quaffed The red ripe full fume of the deep live draught, The sharp quick reek of keen fresh bloodshed, blown Through the dense deep drift up to the emperor's throne From the under steaming sands With clamour of all-applausive throats and hands, Mingling in mirthful time With shrill blithe mockeries of the lithe-limbed mime: So from somewhence far forth of the unbeholden, Dreadfully driven from over and after and under, Fierce, blown through fifes of brazen blast and golden, With sound of chiming waves that drown the thunder Or thunder that strikes dumb the sea's own chimes, Began the bellowing of the bull-voiced mimes, Terrible; firs bowed down as briars or palms Even at the breathless blast as of a breeze Fulfilled with clamour and clangour and storms of psalms; Red hands rent up the roots of old-world trees, Thick flames of torches tossed as tumbling seas Made mad the moonless and infuriate air That, ravening, revelled in the riotous hair And raiment of the furred Bassarides.