Caliban on Ariel

"His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract"
The tongue is loosed of that most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness. Listen: "Lo,
The real god of song, Lord Stephano,
That's a brave god, if ever god were brave,
And bears celestial liquor: but," the knave
(A most ridiculous monster) howls, "we know
From Ariel's lips what springs of poison flow,
The chicken-heart blasphemer! Hear him rave!"
Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam, the witch whose name
Is darkness, and the sun her eyes' offence,
Though hell's hot sewerage breed no loathlier elf,
Men cry not shame upon thee, seeing thy shame
So perfect: they but bid thee"Hag-seed, hence!"

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

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Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

English

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Apologia

If wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song,
And make the sunlight fire before those eyes
That would drink draughts of peace from the unsoiled skies,
The wrongdoing is not ours, but ours the wrong,
Who hear too loud on earth and see too long
The grief that dies not with the groan that dies,
Till the strong bitterness of pity cries
Within us, that our anger should be strong.
For chill is known by heat and heat by chill,
And the desire that hope makes love to still
By the fear flying beside it or above,
A falcon fledged to follow a fledgeling dove,
And by the fume and flame of hate of ill
The exuberant light and burning bloom of love.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Pelagius

I.
The sea shall praise him and the shores bear part
That reared him when the bright south world was black
With fume of creeds more foul than hells own rack,
Still darkening more loves face with loveless art
Since Paul, faiths fervent Antichrist, of heart
Heroic, haled the world vehemently back
From Christs pure path on dire Jehovahs track,
And said to dark Elishas Lord, Thou art.
But one whose soul had put the raiment on
Of love that Jesus left with James and John
Withstood that Lord whose seals of love were lies,
Seeing what we see how, touched by Truths bright rod,
The fiend whom Jews and Africans called God
Feels his own hell take hold on him, and dies.

II.
The world has no such flower in any land,
And no such pearl in any gulf the sea,...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Shrieks out of smoke, a flame of dung-straw fire
    That is not quenched but hath for only fruit
    What writhes and dies not in its rotten root:
Two things made flesh, the visible desire
To match in filth the skunk, the ape in ire, {87a}
    Mouthing before the mirrors with wild foot
    Beyond all feebler footprint of pursuit,
The perfect twanger of the Chinese lyre!
A heart with generous virtues run to seed
In vices making all a jumbled creed:
    A soul that knows not love nor trust nor shame,
But cuts itself with knives to bawl and bleed -
    If thou we've known of late, art still the same,
    What need, O soul, to sign thee with thy name?

Once on thy lips the golden-honeyed bees
    Settling made sweet the heart that was not strong,
    And sky...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Celaeno

The blind king hides his weeping eyeless head,
Sick with the helpless hate and shame and awe,
Till food have choked the glutted hell-bird's craw
And the foul cropful creature lie as dead
And soil itself with sleep and too much bread:
So the man's life serves under the beast's law,
And things whose spirit lives in mouth and maw
Share shrieking the soul's board and soil her bed,
Till man's blind spirit, their sick slave, resign
Its kingdom to the priests whose souls are swine,
And the scourged serf lie reddening from their rod,
Discrowned, disrobed, dismantled, with lost eyes
Seeking where lurks in what conjectural skies
That triple-headed hound of hell their God.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Monument of Giordano Bruno

I
Not from without us, only from within,
Comes or can ever come upon us light
Whereby the soul keeps ever truth in sight.
No truth, no strength, no comfort man may win,
No grace for guidance, no release from sin,
Save of his own soul's giving. Deep and bright
As fire enkindled in the core of night
Burns in the soul where once its fire has been
The light that leads and quickens thought, inspired
To doubt and trust and conquer. So he said
Whom Sidney, flower of England, lordliest head
Of all we love, loved: but the fates required
A sacrifice to hate and hell, ere fame
Should set with his in heaven Giordano's name.

II
Cover thine eyes and weep, O child of hell,
Grey spouse of Satan, Church of name abhorred.
Weep, withered harlot, with thy weeping ...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Pan and Thalassius

A Lyrical Idyl

THALASSIUS
Pan!

PAN
O sea-stray, seed of Apollo,
What word wouldst thou have with me?
My ways thou wast fain to follow
Or ever the years hailed thee
Man.
Now
If August brood on the valleys,
If satyrs laugh on the lawns,
What part in the wildwood alleys
Hast thou with the fleet-foot fauns
Thou?
See!
Thy feet are a man's not cloven
Like these, not light as a boy's:
The tresses and tendrils inwoven
That lure us, the lure of them cloys
Thee.
Us
The joy of the wild woods never
Leaves free of the thirst it slakes:
The wild love throbs in us ever
That burns in the dense hot brakes
Thus.
Life,
Eternal, passionate, awless,
Insatiable, mutable, dear,
Makes all men's l...

Algernon Charles Swinburne