Eurydice

To Victor Hugo


Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries,
And hardly for the storm and ruin shed
Can even thine eyes be certain of her head
Who never passed out of thy spirits eyes,
But stood and shone before them in such wise
As when with love her lips and hands were fed,
And with mute mouth out of the dusty dead
Strove to make answer when thou badst her rise.

Yet viper-stricken must her lifeblood feel
The fang that stung her sleeping, the foul germ
Even when she wakes of hells most poisonous worm,
Though now it writhe beneath her wounded heel.
Turn yet, she will not fade nor fly from thee;
Wait, and see hell yield up Eurydice.

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

Poems and Ballads - Dedication

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Olive

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Winter in Northumberland

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Clear The Way!

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

English

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Euthanatos

In Memory of Mrs. Thellusson.


Forth of our ways and woes,
Forth of the winds and snows,
A white soul soaring goes,
Winged like a dove:
So sweet, so pure, so clear,
So heavenly tempered here,
Love need not hope or fear her changed above:

Ere dawned her day to die,
So heavenly, that on high
Change could not glorify
Nor death refine her:
Pure gold of perfect love,
On earth like heavens own dove,
She cannot wear, above, a smile diviner.

Her voice in heavens own quire
Can sound no heavenlier lyre
Than here no purer fire
Her soul can soar:
No sweeter stars her eyes
In unimagined skies
Beyond our sight can rise than here before,

Hardly long years had shed
Their shadows on her head:
Hardly ...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Eurydice.

Oh come, Eurydice!
The Stygian deeps are past
Well-nigh; the light dawns fast.
Oh come, Eurydice!

The gods have heard my song!
My love's despairing cry
Filled hell with melody, -
And the gods heard my song.

I knew no life but thee;
Persephone was moved;
She, too, hath lived, hath loved;
She saw I lived for thee.

I may not look on thee,
Such was the gods' decree; -
Till sun and earth we see
No kiss, no smile for thee!

The way is rough, is hard;
I cannot hear thy feet
Swift following; speak, my Sweet, -
Is the way rough and hard?

"Oh come, Eurydice!"
I turn: "our woe is o'er,
I will not lose thee more!"
I cry: "Eurydice!"

O father Hermes, help!
I see her fade away
Back from the...

Sophie M. (Almon) Hensley

Cleopatra

"Her beauty might outface the jealous hours,
Turn shame to love and pain to a tender sleep,
And the strong nerve of hate to sloth and tears;
Make spring rebellious in the sides of frost,
Thrust out lank winter with hot August growths,
Compel sweet blood into the husks of death,
And from strange beasts enforce harsh courtesy."

T. Hayman, Fall of Antony, 1655.


I
Her mouth is fragrant as a vine,
A vine with birds in all its boughs;
Serpent and scarab for a sign
Between the beauty of her brows
And the amorous deep lids divine.

II
Her great curled hair makes luminous
Her cheeks, her lifted throat and chin
Shall she not have the hearts of us
To shatter, and the loves therein
To shred between her fingers thus?

...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Satia te Sanguine

If you loved me ever so little,
I could bear the bonds that gall,
I could dream the bonds were brittle;
You do not love me at all.

O beautiful lips, O bosom
More white than the moons and warm,
A sterile, a ruinous blossom
Is blown your way in a storm.

As the lost white feverish limbs
Of the Lesbian Sappho, adrift
In foam where the sea-weed swims,
Swam loose for the streams to lift,

My heart swims blind in a sea
That stuns me; swims to and fro,
And gathers to windward and lee
Lamentation, and mourning, and woe.

A broken, an emptied boat,
Sea saps it, winds blow apart,
Sick and adrift and afloat,
The barren waif of a heart.

Where, when the gods would be cruel,
Do they go for a torture? where
Plant thor...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Aperotos Eros

Strong as death, and cruel as the grave,
Clothed with cloud and tempest's blackening breath,
Known of death's dread self, whom none outbrave,
Strong as death,

Love, brow-bound with anguish for a wreath,
Fierce with pain, a tyrant-hearted slave,
Burns above a world that groans beneath.

Hath not pity power on thee to save,
Love? hath power no pity? Nought he saith,
Answering: blind he walks as wind or wave,
Strong as death.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Descent into Hell

1

O Night and death, to whom we grudged him then,
When in man's sight he stood not yet undone,
Your king, your priest, your saviour, and your son,
We grudge not now, who know that not again
Shall this curse come upon the sins of men,
Nor this face look upon the living sun
That shall behold not so abhorred an one
In all the days whereof his eye takes ken.
The bond is cancelled, and the prayer is heard
That seemed so long but weak and wasted breath;
Take him, for he is yours, O night and death.
Hell yawns on him whose life was as a word
Uttered by death in hate of heaven and light,
A curse now dumb upon the lips of night.


2

What shapes are these and shadows without end
That fill the night full as a storm of rain
With myriads of ...

Algernon Charles Swinburne