Dedication - ristram of Lyonesse and Other Poems

TO MY BEST FRIEND

THEODORE WATTS

I DEDICATE IN THIS BOOK

THE BEST I HAVE TO GIVE HIM

Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred,
And all our wide glad wastes aflower around,
That twice have heard keen Aprils clarion sound
Since here we first together saw and heard
Springs light reverberate and reiterate word
Shine forth and speak in season. Life stands crowned
Here with the best one thing it ever found,
As of my souls best birthdays dawns the third.

There is a friend that as the wise man saith
Cleaves closer than a brother: nor to me
Hath time not shown, through days like waves at strife,
This truth more sure than all things else but death,
This pearl most perfect found in all the sea
That washes toward your feet these waifs of life.

THE PINES
April 1882

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

A Reminiscence

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

The Last Oracle

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Hermaphroditus

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Mater Triumphalis

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.

Dedication From "Poems and Ballads"

The years are many, the changes more,
Since wind and sun on the wild sweet shore
Where Joyous Gard stands stark by the sea
With face as bright as in years of yore
Shone, swept, and sounded, and laughed for glee
More deep than a man's or a child's may be,
On a day when summer was wild and glad,
And the guests of the wind and the sun were we.
The light that lightens from seasons clad
With darkness now, is it glad or sad?
Not sad but glad should it shine, meseems,
On eyes yet fain of the joy they had.
For joy was there with us; joy that gleams
And murmurs yet in the world of dreams
Where thought holds fast, as a constant warder,
The days when I rode by moors and streams,
Reining my rhymes into buoyant order
Through honied leagues of the northland border.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Dedication to Alice Swinburne

I.

The love that comes and goes like wind or fire
Hath words and wings wherewith to speak and flee.
But love more deep than passion's deep desire,
Clear and inviolable as the unsounded sea,
What wings of words may serve to set it free,
To lift and lead it homeward? Time and death
Are less than love: or man's live spirit saith
False, when he deems his life is more than breath.

II.

No words may utter love; no sovereign song
Speak all it would for love's sake. Yet would I
Fain cast in moulded rhymes that do me wrong
Some little part of all my love: but why
Should weak and wingless words be fain to fly?
For us the years that live not are not dead:
Past days and present in our hearts are wed:
My song can say no more than love hath said.
...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A Dedication

DEAR, near and trueno truer Time himself
Can prove you, tho he make you evermore
Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life
Shoots to the falltake this, and pray that he,
Who wrote it, honoring your sweet faith in him,
May trust himself; and spite of praise and scorn,
As one who feels the immeasurable world,
Attain the wise indifference of the wise;
And after Autumn pastif left to pass
His autumn into seeming-leafless days
Draw toward the long frost and longest night,
Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit
Which in our winter woodland looks a flower.*

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dedication - From "A Century of Roundels"

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.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

To John Nichol - Sonnets

I.

Friend of the dead, and friend of all my days
Even since they cast off boyhood, I salute
The song saluting friends whose songs are mute
With full burnt-offerings of clear-spirited praise.
That since our old young years our several ways
Have led through fields diverse of flower and fruit
Yet no cross wind has once relaxed the root
We set long since beneath the sundawns rays,
The root of trust whence towered the trusty tree,
Friendship this only and duly might impel
My song to salutation of your own;
More even than praise of one unseen of me
And loved the starry spirit of Dobell,
To mine by light and music only known.



II.

But more than this what moves me most of all
To leave not all unworded and unsped
The whole heart...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Dedication to Edward John Trelawny

A sea-mew on a sea-king's wrist alighting,
As the north sea-wind caught and strained and curled
The raven-figured flag that led men fighting
From field to green field of the water-world,
Might find such brief high favour at his hand
For wings imbrued with brine, with foam impearled,
As these my songs require at yours on land,
That durst not save for love's free sake require,
Being lightly born between the foam and sand,
But reared by hope and memory and desire
Of lives that were and life that is to be,
Even such as filled his heavenlier song with fire
Whose very voice, that sang to set man free,
Was in your ears as ever in ours his lyre,
Once, ere the flame received him from the sea.

Algernon Charles Swinburne