Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): George Chapman

High priest of Homer, not elect in vain,
Deep trumpets blow before thee, shawms behind
Mix music with the rolling wheels that wind
Slow through the labouring triumph of thy train:
Fierce history, molten in thy forging brain,
Takes form and fire and fashion from thy mind,
Tormented and transmuted out of kind:
But howsoeer thou shift thy strenuous strain,
Like Tailor¹ smooth, like Fisher² swollen, and now
Grim Yarrington³ scarce bloodier marked than thou,
Then bluff as Maynes⁴ or broad-mouthed Barrys⁵ glee ,
Proud still with hoar predominance of brow
And beard like foam swept off the broad blown sea,
Whereer thou go, mens reverence goes with thee.

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

The Garden of Proserpine

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Had I Wist

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

Prologue to Arden of Feversham

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

A Ballad of Death

Algernon Charles Swinburne, Simple Poetry

English

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Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): The Many

I.

Greene, garlanded with Februarys few flowers,
Ere March came in with Marlowes rapturous rage:
Peele, from whose hand the sweet white locks of age
Took the mild chaplet woven of honoured hours:
Nash, laughing hard: Lodge, flushed from lyric bowers:
And Lilly, a goldfinch in a twisted cage
Fed by some gay great ladys pettish page
Till short sweet songs gush clear like short spring showers
Kid, whose grim sport still gambolled over graves:
And Chettle, in whose fresh funereal verse
Weeps Marian yet on Robins wildwood hearse:
Cooke, whose light boat of song one soft breath saves,
Sighed from a maidens amorous mouth averse:
Live likewise ye: Time takes not you for slaves.



II.

Haughton, whose mirth gave woman all her will:
...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): Ben Jonson

Broad-based, broad-fronted, bounteous, multiform,
With many a valley impleached with ivy and vine,
Wherein the springs of all the streams run wine,
And many a crag full-faced against the storm,
The mountain where thy Muses feet made warm
Those lawns that revelled with her dance divine
Shines yet with fire as it was wont to shine
From tossing torches round the dance aswarm.

Nor less, high-stationed on the grey grave heights,
High-thoughted seers with heavens heart-kindling lights
Hold converse: and the herd of meaner things
Knows or by fiery scourge or fiery shaft
When wrath on thy broad brows has risen, and laughed,
Darkening thy soul with shadow of thunderous wings.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): Christopher Marlowe

Crowned, girdled, garbed and shod with light and fire,
Son first-born of the morning, sovereign star!
Soul nearest ours of all, that wert most far,
Most far off in the abysm of time, thy lyre
Hung highest above the dawn-enkindled quire
Where all ye sang together, all that are,
And all the starry songs behind thy car
Rang sequence, all our souls acclaim thee sire.

If all the pens that ever poets held
Had fed the feeling of their masters thoughts,
And as with rush of hurtling chariots
The flight of all their spirits were impelled
Toward one great end, thy glory, nay, not then,
Not yet mightst thou be praised enough of men.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): James Shirley

The dusk of days decline was hard on dark
When evening trembled round thy glowworm lamp
That shone across her shades and dewy damp
A small clear beacon whose benignant spark
Was gracious yet for loiterers eyes to mark,
Though changed the watchword of our English camp
Since the outposts rang round Marlowes lion ramp,
When thy steeds pace went ambling round Hyde Park.
And in the thickening twilight under thee
Walks Davenant, pensive in the paths where he,
The blithest throat that ever carolled love
In music made of mornings merriest heart,
Glad Suckling, stumbled from his seat above
And reeled on slippery roads of alien art.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): John Webster

Thunder: the flesh quails, and the soul bows down.
Night: east, west, south, and northward, very night
Star upon struggling star strives into sight,
Star after shuddering star the deep storms drown.
The very throne of night, her very crown,
A man lays hand on, and usurps her right
Song from the highest of heavens imperious height
Shoots, as a fire to smite some towering town.
Rage, anguish, harrowing fear, heart-crazing crime,
Make monstrous all the murderous face of Time
Shown in the spheral orbit of a glass
Revolving. Earth cries out from all her graves.
Frail, on frail rafts, across wide-wallowing waves,
Shapes here and there of child and mother pass.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650): John Marston

The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn
Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant whence thou
Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow
A chaplet by no gentler forehead worn.
Grief deep as hell, wrath hardly to be borne,
Ploughed up thy soul till round the furrowing plough
The strange black soil foamed, as a black beaked prow
Bids night-black waves foam where its track has torn.
Too faint the phrase for thee that only saith
Scorn bitterer than the bitterness of death
Pervades the sullen splendour of thy soul,
Where hate and pain make war on force and fraud
And all the strengths of tyrants; whence unflawed
It keeps this noble heart of hatred whole.

Algernon Charles Swinburne