A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS
BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
SECOND EDITION
London CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1883
[All rights reserved]
p. ivLONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET
p. vDEDICATION TO CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI
Songs light as these may sound, though deep and strong The heart spake through them, scarce should hope to please Ears tuned to strains of loftier thoughts than throng Songs light as these.
Yet grace may set their sometime doubt at ease, Nor need their too rash reverence fear to wrong The shrine it serves at and the hope it sees.
For childlike loves and laughters thence prolong Notes that bid enter, fearless as the breeze, Even to the shrine of holiest-hearted song, Songs light as these.
p. viiCONTENTS.
PAGE
I.
In Harbour
1
II.
,,
2
III.
The Way of the Wind
3
IV.
Had I Wist
4
V.
Recollections
5
VI.
,,
6
VII.
,,
7
VIII.
Time and Life
8
IX.
,,
9
X.
A Dialogue
10
XI.
,,
11
XII.
,,
12
XIII.
Plus Ultra
13
XIV.
A Dead Friend
14
XV.
,,
15
XVI.
,,
16
XVII.
,,
17
p. viiiXVIII.
,,
18
XIX.
,,
19
XX.
,,
20
XXI.
Past Days
21
XXII.
,,
22
XXIII.
,,
23
XXIV.
Autumn and Winter
24
XXV.
,,
25
XXVI.
,,
26
XXVII.
,,
27
XXVIII.
The Death of Richard Wagner
28
XXIX.
,,
29
XXX.
,,
30
Two preludes:
XXXI.
Lohengrin
31
XXXII.
Tristan und Isolde
32
XXXIII.
The Lute and the Lyre
33
XXXIV.
Plus Intra
34
XXXV.
Change
35
XXXVI.
A Baby’s Death
36
XXXVII.
,,
37
XXXVIII.
,,
38
p. ixXXXIX.
,,
39
XL.
,,
40
XLI.
,,
41
XLII.
,,
42
XLIII.
One of Twain
43
XLIV.
,,
44
XLV.
Death and Birth
45
XLVI.
Birth and Death
46
XLVII.
Benediction
47
XLVIII.
Étude Réaliste
48
XLIX.
,,
49
L.
,,
50
LI.
Babyhood
51
LII.
,,
52
LIII.
,,
53
LIV.
,,
54
LV.
First Footsteps
55
LVI.
A Ninth Birthday
56
LVII.
,,
57
LVIII.
,,
58
LIX.
Not a Child
59
LX.
,,
60
LXI.
,,
61
LXII.
To Dora Dorian
62
LXIII.
The Roundel
63
LXIV.
At Sea
64
LXV.
Wasted Love
65
p. xLXVI.
Before Sunset
66
LXVII.
A Singing Lesson
67
Flower-pieces:
LXVIII.
Love Lies Bleeding
68
LXIX.
Love in a Mist
69
Three faces:
LXX.
Ventimiglia
70
LXXI.
Genoa
71
LXXII.
Venice
72
LXXIII.
Eros
73
LXXIV.
,,
74
LXXV.
,,
75
LXXVI.
Sorrow
76
LXXVII.
Sleep
77
LXXVIII.
On an Old Roundel
78
LXXIX.
79
p. xiLXXX.
A Landscape by Courbet
80
LXXXI.
A Flower-piece by Fantin
81
LXXXII.
A Night-piece by Millet
82
LXXXIII.
Marzo Pazzo
83
LXXXIV.
Dead Love
84
LXXXV.
Discord
85
LXXXVI.
Concord
86
LXXXVII.
Mourning
87
LXXXVIII.
Aperotos Eros
88
LXXXIX.
To Catullus
89
CX.
‘Insularum Ocelle’
90
CXI.
In Sark
91
CXII.
In Guernsey
92
CXIII.
,,
93
CXIV.
,,
94
CXV.
,,
95
CXVI.
,,
96
CXVII.
,,
97
CXVIII.
,,
98
CXIX.
,,
99
C.
Envoi
100
p. 1IN HARBOUR.
I.
Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by; To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us Goodnight and goodbye.
A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh; But were we not fools and blind, by day to devote us As thralls to the darkness, unseen of the sundawn’s eye?
We have drunken of Lethe at length, we have eaten of lotus; What hurts it us here that sorrows are born and die? We have said to the dream that caressed and the dread that smote us Goodnight and goodbye.
p. 2II.
Outside of the port ye are moored in, lying Close from the wind and at ease from the tide, What sounds come swelling, what notes fall dying Outside?
They will not cease, they will not abide: Voices of presage in darkness crying Pass and return and relapse aside.
Ye see not, but hear ye not wild wings flying To the future that wakes from the past that died? Is grief still sleeping, is joy not sighing Outside?
p. 3THE WAY OF THE WIND.
The wind’s way in the deep sky’s hollow None may measure, as none can say How the heart in her shows the swallow The wind’s way.
Hope nor fear can avail to stay Waves that whiten on wrecks that wallow, Times and seasons that wane and slay.
Life and love, till the strong night swallow Thought and hope and the red last ray, Swim the waters of years that follow The wind’s way.
p. 4‘HAD I WIST.’
Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing Light and loud through sundawn and the dew’s bright trust, How the time should come for hearts to sigh in saying ‘Had I wist’—
Surely not the roses, laughing as they kissed, Not the lovelier laugh of seas in sunshine swaying, Should have lured my soul to look thereon and list.
Now the wind is like a soul cast out and praying Vainly, prayers that pierce not ears when hearts resist: Now mine own soul sighs, adrift as wind and straying, ‘Had I wist.’
p. 5RECOLLECTIONS.
I.
Years upon years, as a course of clouds that thicken Thronging the ways of the wind that shifts and veers, Pass, and the flames of remembered fires requicken Years upon years.
Surely the thought in a man’s heart hopes or fears Now that forgetfulness needs must here have stricken Anguish, and sweetened the sealed-up springs of tears.
Ah, but the strength of regrets that strain and sicken, Yearning for love that the veil of death endears, Slackens not wing for the wings of years that quicken— Years upon years.
p. 6II.
Years upon years, and the flame of love’s high altar Trembles and sinks, and the sense of listening ears Heeds not the sound that it heard of love’s blithe psalter Years upon years.
Only the sense of a heart that hearkens hears, Louder than dreams that assail and doubts that palter, Sorrow that slept and that wakes ere sundawn peers.
Wakes, that the heart may behold, and yet not falter, Faces of children as stars unknown of, spheres Seen but of love, that endures though all things alter, Years upon years.
p. 7III.
Years upon years, as a watch by night that passes, Pass, and the light of their eyes is fire that sears Slowly the hopes of the fruit that life amasses Years upon years.
Pale as the glimmer of stars on moorland meres Lighten the shadows reverberate from the glasses Held in their hands as they pass among their peers.
Lights that are shadows, as ghosts on graveyard grasses, Moving on paths that the moon of memory cheers, Shew but as mists over cloudy mountain passes Years upon years.
p. 8TIME AND LIFE.
I.
Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame Ere the change of things and thoughts requicken, Time, thy name.
Girt about with shadow, blind and lame, Ghosts of things that smite and thoughts that sicken Hunt and hound thee down to death and shame.
Eyes of hours whose paces halt or quicken Read in bloodred lines of loss and blame, Writ where cloud and darkness round it thicken, Time, thy name.
p. 9II.
Nay, but rest is born of me for healing, —So might haply time, with voice represt, Speak: is grief the last gift of my dealing? Nay, but rest.
All the world is wearied, east and west, Tired with toil to watch the slow sun wheeling, Twelve loud hours of life’s laborious quest.
Eyes forspent with vigil, faint and reeling, Find at last my comfort, and are blest, Not with rapturous light of life’s revealing— Nay, but rest.
p. 10A DIALOGUE.
I.
Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee: Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built, One shelter where our spirits fain would be, Death, if thou wilt?
No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt, Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree, Too mean for sceptre’s heft or swordblade’s hilt.
Some low sweet roof where love might live, set free From change and fear and dreams of grief or guilt; Canst thou not leave life even thus much to see, Death, if thou wilt?
p. 11II.
Man, what art thou to speak and plead with me? What knowest thou of my workings, where and how What things I fashion? Nay, behold and see, Man, what art thou?
Thy fruits of life, and blossoms of thy bough, What are they but my seedlings? Earth and sea Bear nought but when I breathe on it must bow.
Bow thou too down before me: though thou be Great, all the pride shall fade from off thy brow, When Time and strong Oblivion ask of thee, Man, what art thou?
p. 12III.
Death, if thou be or be not, as was said, Immortal; if thou make us nought, or we Survive: thy power is made but of our dread, Death, if thou be.
Thy might is made out of our fear of thee: Who fears thee not, hath plucked from off thine head The crown of cloud that darkens earth and sea.
Earth, sea, and sky, as rain or vapour shed, Shall vanish; all the shows of them shall flee: Then shall we know full surely, quick or dead, Death, if thou be.
p. 13PLUS ULTRA.
Far beyond the sunrise and the sunset rises Heaven, with worlds on worlds that lighten and respond: Thought can see not thence the goal of hope’s surmises Far beyond.
Night and day have made an everlasting bond Each with each to hide in yet more deep disguises Truth, till souls of men that thirst for truth despond.
All that man in pride of spirit slights or prizes, All the dreams that make him fearful, fain, or fond, Fade at forethought’s touch of life’s unknown surprises Far beyond.
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