A Midsummer Holiday:- IV. The Mill Garden

Stately stand the sunflowers, glowing down the garden-side,
Ranged in royal rank arow along the warm grey wall,
Whence their deep disks burn at rich midnoon afire with pride,
Even as though their beams indeed were sunbeams, and the tall
Sceptral stems bore stars whose reign endures, not flowers that fall.
Lowlier laughs and basks the kindlier flower of homelier fame,
Held by love the sweeter that it blooms in Shakespeares name,
Fragrant yet as though his hand had touched and made it thrill,
Like the whole worlds heart, with warm new life and gladdening flame.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!
Softlier here the flower-soft feet of refluent seasons glide,
Lightlier breathes the long low note of changes gentler call.
Wind and storm and landslip feed the lone seas gulf outside,
Half a seamews first flight hence; but scarce may these appal
Peace, whose perfect seal is set for signet here on all.
Steep and deep and sterile, under fields no plough can tame,
Dip the cliffs full-fledged with poppies red as love or shame,
Wide wan daisies bleak and bold, or herbage harsh and chill;
Here the full clove pinks and wallflowers crown the love they claim.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!
All the place breathes low, but not for fear lest ill betide,
Soft as roses answering roses, or a doves recall.
Little heeds it how the seaward banks may stoop and slide,
How the winds and years may hold all outer things in thrall,
How their wrath may work on hoar church tower and boundary wall.
Far and wide the waste and ravin of their rule proclaim
Change alone the changeless lord of things, alone the same:
Here a flower is stronger than the winds that work their will,
Or the years that wing their way through darkness toward their aim.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!
Friend, the home that smiled us welcome hither when we came,
When we pass again with summer, surely should reclaim
Somewhat given of hearts thanksgiving more than words fulfil
More than song, were song more sweet than all but love, might frame.
Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. Born on April 5, 1837, in London, he became known for his innovative versification and erotic content. Swinburne was a central figure in the aesthetic and decadent movements. His major works include 'Poems and Ballads' and 'Atalanta in Calydon.' He died on April 10, 1909, in Putney, London. Swinburne's legacy is marked by his lyrical mastery and controversial themes, influencing countless poets thereafter.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Christmas Antiphones

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Caliban on Ariel

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

In Time of Mourning

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Light: an Epicede

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

A Midsummer Holiday:- II. A Haven

East and north a waste of waters, south and west
Lonelier lands than dreams in sleep would feign to be,
When the soul goes forth on travel, and is prest
Round and compassed in with clouds that flash and flee
Dells without a streamlet, downs without a tree,
Cirques of hollow cliff that crumble, give their guest
Little hope, till hard at hand he pause, to see
Where the small town smiles, a warm still sea-side nest.
Many a lone long mile, by many a headlands crest,
Down by many a garden dear to bird and bee,
Up by many a sea-downs bare and breezy breast,
Winds the sandy strait of road where flowers run free.
Here along the deep steep lanes by field and lea
Knights have carolled, pilgrims chanted, on their quest,
Haply, ere a roof rose toward the bleak strands lee,
...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A Midsummer Holiday:- VII. In The Water

The sea is awake, and the sound of the song of the joy of her waking is rolled
From afar to the star that recedes, from anear to the wastes of the wild wide shore.
Her call is a trumpet compelling us homeward: if dawn in her east be acold,
From the sea shall we crave not her grace to rekindle the life that it kindled before,
Her breath to requicken, her bosom to rock us, her kisses to bless as of yore?
For the wind, with his wings half open, at pause in the sky, neither fettered nor free,
Leans waveward and flutters the ripple to laughter and fain would the twain of us be
Where lightly the wave yearns forward from under the curve of the deep dawns dome,
And, full of the morning and fired with the pride of the glory thereof and the glee,
Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids and bes...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A Midsummer Holiday:- VI. The Cliffside Path

Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down
We, before the night upon his grave be sealed.
Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town,
High before us heaves the steep rough silent field.
Breach by ghastlier breach, the cliffs collapsing yield:
Half the path is broken, half the banks divide;
Flawed and crumbled, riven and rent, they cleave and slide
Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of girdling sand
Deep beneath, whose furrows tell how far and wide
Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.
Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down.
Golden spear-points glance against a silver shield.
Over banks and bents, across the headlands crown,
As by pulse of gradual plumes through twilight wheeled,
Soft as sleep, the waking wind awakes the weald.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Spring in Tuscany

Rose-red lilies that bloom on the banner;
Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring;
Rose-mouthed acacias that laugh as they climb,
Like plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan her
With wind more soft than a wild dove's wing,
What do they sing in the spring of their time

If this be the rose that the world hears singing,
Soft in the soft night, loud in the day,
Songs for the fireflies to dance as they hear;
If that be the song of the nightingale, springing
Forth in the form of a rose in May,
What do they say of the way of the year?

What of the way of the world gone Maying,
What of the work of the buds in the bowers,
What of the will of the wind on the wall,
Fluttering the wall-flowers, sighing and playing,
Shrinking again as a bird that cowers,

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A Midsummer Holiday:- VIII. The Sunbows

Spray of song that springs in April, light of love that laughs through May,
Live and die and live for ever: nought of all thing far less fair
Keeps a surer life than these that seem to pass like fire away.
In the souls they live which are but all the brighter that they were;
In the hearts that kindle, thinking what delight of old was there.
Wind that shapes and lifts and shifts them bids perpetual memory play
Over dreams and in and out of deeds and thoughts which seem to wear
Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray.
Dawn is wild upon the waters where we drink of dawn to-day:
Wide, from wave to wave rekindling in rebound through radiant air,
Flash the fires unwoven and woven again of wind that works in play,
Working wonders more than heart may note or...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Hendecasyllabics

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,
Gazing eagerly where above the sea-mark
Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions
Half divided the eyelids of the sunset;
Till I heard as it were a noise of waters
Moving tremulous under feet of angels
Multitudinous, out of all the heavens;
Knew the fluttering wind, the fluttered foliage,
Shaken fitfully, full of sound and shadow;
And saw, trodden upon by noiseless angels,
Long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight,
Sweet sad straits in a soft subsiding channel,
Blown about by the lips of winds I knew not,
Winds not born in the north nor any quarter,
Winds not warm with the south nor any sunshine;
Heard between them a voice of e...

Algernon Charles Swinburne