User:ZackMartin/swinburne

'The Triumph of Time' by Algernon Charles Swinburne
 * Before our lives divide for ever,
 * While time is with us and hands are free,
 * (Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever
 * Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea)
 * I will say no word that a man might say
 * Whose whole life's love goes down in a day;
 * For this could never have been; and never,
 * Though the gods and the years relent, shall be.
 * Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour,
 * To think of things that are well outworn?
 * Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower,
 * The dream foregone and the deed forborne?
 * Though joy be done with and grief be vain,
 * Time shall not sever us wholly in twain;
 * Earth is not spoilt for a single shower;
 * But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn.
 * It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart,
 * Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain.
 * The singing seasons divide and depart,
 * Winter and summer depart in twain.
 * It will grow not again, it is ruined at root,
 * The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit;
 * Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart,
 * With sullen savour of poisonous pain.
 * I have given no man of my fruit to eat;
 * I trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine.
 * Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet,
 * This wild new growth of the corn and vine,
 * This wine and bread without lees or leaven,
 * We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven,
 * Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet,
 * One splendid spirit, your soul and mine.
 * In the change of years, in the coil of things,
 * In the clamour and rumour of life to be,
 * We, drinking love at the furthest springs,
 * Covered with love as a covering tree,
 * We had grown as gods, as the gods above,
 * Filled from the heart to the lips with love,
 * Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings,
 * O love, my love, had you loved but me!
 * We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved
 * As the moon moves, loving the world; and seen
 * Grief collapse as a thing disproved,
 * Death consume as a thing unclean.
 * Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fast
 * Soul to soul while the years fell past;
 * Had you loved me once, as you have not loved;
 * Had the chance been with us that has not been.
 * I have put my days and dreams out of mind,
 * Days that are over, dreams that are done.
 * Though we seek life through, we shall surely find
 * There is none of them clear to us now, not one.
 * But clear are these things; the grass and the sand,
 * Where, sure as the eyes reach, ever at hand,
 * With lips wide open and face burnt blind,
 * The strong sea-daisies feast on the sun.
 * The low downs lean to the sea; the stream,
 * One loose thin pulseless tremulous vein,
 * Rapid and vivid and dumb as a dream,
 * Works downward, sick of the sun and the rain;
 * No wind is rough with the rank rare flowers;
 * The sweet sea, mother of loves and hours,
 * Shudders and shines as the grey winds gleam,
 * Turning her smile to a fugitive pain.
 * Mother of loves that are swift to fade,
 * Mother of mutable winds and hours.
 * A barren mother, a mother-maid,
 * Cold and clean as her faint salt flowers.
 * I would we twain were even as she,
 * Lost in the night and the light of the sea,
 * Where faint sounds falter and wan beams wade,
 * Break, and are broken, and shed into showers.
 * The loves and hours of the life of a man,
 * They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.
 * Hours that rejoice and regret for a span,
 * Born with a man's breath, mortal as he;
 * Loves that are lost ere they come to birth,
 * Weeds of the wave, without fruit upon earth.
 * I lose what I long for, save what I can,
 * My love, my love, and no love for me!
 * It is not much that a man can save
 * On the sands of life, in the straits of time,
 * Who swims in sight of the great third wave
 * That never a swimmer shall cross or climb.
 * Some waif washed up with the strays and spars
 * That ebb-tide shows to the shore and the stars;
 * Weed from the water, grass from a grave,
 * A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme.
 * There will no man do for your sake, I think,
 * What I would have done for the least word said.
 * I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink,
 * Broken it up for your daily bread:
 * Body for body and blood for blood,
 * As the flow of the full sea risen to flood
 * That yearns and trembles before it sink,
 * I had given, and lain down for you, glad and dead.
 * Yea, hope at highest and all her fruit,
 * And time at fullest and all his dower,
 * I had given you surely, and life to boot,
 * Were we once made one for a single hour.
 * But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart,
 * Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart;
 * And deep in one is the bitter root,
 * And sweet for one is the lifelong flower.
 * To have died if you cared I should die for you, clung
 * To my life if you bade me, played my part
 * As it pleased you — these were the thoughts that stung,
 * The dreams that smote with a keener dart
 * Than shafts of love or arrows of death;
 * These were but as fire is, dust, or breath,
 * Or poisonous foam on the tender tongue
 * Of the little snakes that eat my heart.
 * I wish we were dead together to-day,
 * Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight,
 * Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay,
 * Out of the world's way, out of the light,
 * Out of the ages of worldly weather,
 * Forgotten of all men altogether,
 * As the world's first dead, taken wholly away,
 * Made one with death, filled full of the night.
 * How we should slumber, how we should sleep,
 * Far in the dark with the dreams and the dews!
 * And dreaming, grow to each other, and weep,
 * Laugh low, live softly, murmur and muse;
 * Yea, and it may be, struck through by the dream,
 * Feel the dust quicken and quiver, and seem
 * Alive as of old to the lips, and leap
 * Spirit to spirit as lovers use.
 * Sick dreams and sad of a dull delight;
 * For what shall it profit when men are dead
 * To have dreamed, to have loved with the whole soul's might,
 * To have looked for day when the day was fled?
 * Let come what will, there is one thing worth,
 * To have had fair love in the life upon earth:
 * To have held love safe till the day grew night,
 * While skies had colour and lips were red.
 * Would I lose you now? would I take you then,
 * If I lose you now that my heart has need?
 * And come what may after death to men,
 * What thing worth this will the dead years breed?
 * Lose life, lose all; but at least I know,
 * O sweet life's love, having loved you so,
 * Had I reached you on earth, I should lose not again,
 * In death nor life, nor in dream or deed.
 * Yea, I know this well: were you once sealed mine,
 * Mine in the blood's beat, mine in the breath,
 * Mixed into me as honey in wine,
 * Not time, that sayeth and gainsayeth,
 * Nor all strong things had severed us then;
 * Not wrath of gods, nor wisdom of men,
 * Nor all things earthly, nor all divine,
 * Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death.
 * I had grown pure as the dawn and the dew,
 * You had grown strong as the sun or the sea.
 * But none shall triumph a whole life through:
 * For death is one, and the fates are three.
 * At the door of life, by the gate of breath,
 * There are worse things waiting for men than death;
 * Death could not sever my soul and you,
 * As these have severed your soul from me.
 * You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you,
 * Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer.
 * But will it not one day in heaven repent you?
 * Will they solace you wholly, the days that were?
 * Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss,
 * Meet mine, and see where the great love is,
 * And tremble and turn and be changed? Content you;
 * The gate is strait; I shall not be there.
 * But you, had you chosen, had you stretched hand,
 * Had you seen good such a thing were done,
 * I too might have stood with the souls that stand
 * In the sun's sight, clothed with the light of the sun;
 * But who now on earth need care how I live?
 * Have the high gods anything left to give,
 * Save dust and laurels and gold and sand?
 * Which gifts are goodly; but I will none.
 * O all fair lovers about the world,
 * There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me.
 * My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirled
 * Round and round in a gulf of the sea;
 * And still, through the sound and the straining stream,
 * Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream,
 * The bright fine lips so cruelly curled,
 * And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free.
 * Free, without pity, withheld from woe,
 * Ignorant; fair as the eyes are fair.
 * Would I have you change now, change at a blow,
 * Startled and stricken, awake and aware?
 * Yea, if I could, would I have you see
 * My very love of you filling me,
 * And know my soul to the quick, as I know
 * The likeness and look of your throat and hair?
 * I shall not change you. Nay, though I might,
 * Would I change my sweet one love with a word?
 * I had rather your hair should change in a night,
 * Clear now as the plume of a black bright bird;
 * Your face fail suddenly, cease, turn grey,
 * Die as a leaf that dies in a day.
 * I will keep my soul in a place out of sight,
 * Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.
 * Far off it walks, in a bleak blown space,
 * Full of the sound of the sorrow of years.
 * I have woven a veil for the weeping face,
 * Whose lips have drunken the wine of tears;
 * I have found a way for the failing feet,
 * A place for slumber and sorrow to meet;
 * There is no rumour about the place,
 * Nor light, nor any that sees or hears.
 * I have hidden my soul out of sight, and said
 * "Let none take pity upon thee, none
 * Comfort thy crying: for lo, thou art dead,
 * Lie still now, safe out of sight of the sun.
 * Have I not built thee a grave, and wrought
 * Thy grave-clothes on thee of grievous thought,
 * With soft spun verses and tears unshed,
 * And sweet light visions of things undone?
 * "I have given thee garments and balm and myrrh,
 * And gold, and beautiful burial things.
 * But thou, be at peace now, make no stir;
 * Is not thy grave as a royal king's?
 * Fret not thyself though the end were sore;
 * Sleep, be patient, vex me no more.
 * Sleep; what hast thou to do with her?
 * The eyes that weep, with the mouth that sings?"
 * Where the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten,
 * The cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by,
 * The misconceived and the misbegotten,
 * I would find a sin to do ere I die,
 * Sure to dissolve and destroy me all through,
 * That would set you higher in heaven, serve you
 * And leave you happy, when clean forgotten,
 * As a dead man out of mind, am I.
 * Your lithe hands draw me, your face burns through me,
 * I am swift to follow you, keen to see;
 * But love lacks might to redeem or undo me;
 * As I have been, I know I shall surely be;
 * "What should such fellows as I do?" Nay,
 * My part were worse if I chose to play;
 * For the worst is this after all; if they knew me,
 * Not a soul upon earth would pity me.
 * And I play not for pity of these; but you,
 * If you saw with your soul what man am I,
 * You would praise me at least that my soul all through
 * Clove to you, loathing the lives that lie;
 * The souls and lips that are bought and sold,
 * The smiles of silver and kisses of gold,
 * The lapdog loves that whine as they chew,
 * The little lovers that curse and cry.
 * There are fairer women, I hear; that may be;
 * But I, that I love you and find you fair,
 * Who are more than fair in my eyes if they be,
 * Do the high gods know or the great gods care?
 * Though the swords in my heart for one were seven,
 * Should the iron hollow of doubtful heaven,
 * That knows not itself whether night-time or day be,
 * Reverberate words and a foolish prayer?
 * I will go back to the great sweet mother,
 * Mother and lover of men, the sea.
 * I will go down to her, I and none other,
 * Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me;
 * Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast:
 * O fair white mother, in days long past
 * Born without sister, born without brother,
 * Set free my soul as thy soul is free.
 * O fair green-girdled mother of mine,
 * Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,
 * Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,
 * Thy large embraces are keen like pain.
 * Save me and hide me with all thy waves,
 * Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,
 * Those pure cold populous graves of thine
 * Wrought without hand in a world without stain.
 * I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,
 * Change as the winds change, veer in the tide;
 * My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,
 * I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;
 * Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,
 * Filled full with life to the eyes and hair,
 * As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips
 * With splendid summer and perfume and pride.
 * This woven raiment of nights and days,
 * Were it once cast off and unwound from me,
 * Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,
 * Alive and aware of thy ways and thee;
 * Clear of the whole world, hidden at home,
 * Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam,
 * A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,
 * A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.
 * Fair mother, fed with the lives of men,
 * Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say.
 * Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again;
 * Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they.
 * But death is the worst that comes of thee;
 * Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea,
 * But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when,
 * Having given us love, hast thou taken away?
 * O tender-hearted, O perfect lover,
 * Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart.
 * The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover,
 * Shall they not vanish away and apart?
 * But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth;
 * Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth;
 * Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover;
 * From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.
 * And grief shall endure not for ever, I know.
 * As things that are not shall these things be;
 * We shall live through seasons of sun and of snow,
 * And none be grievous as this to me.
 * We shall hear, as one in a trance that hears,
 * The sound of time, the rhyme of the years;
 * Wrecked hope and passionate pain will grow
 * As tender things of a spring-tide sea.
 * Sea-fruit that swings in the waves that hiss,
 * Drowned gold and purple and royal rings.
 * And all time past, was it all for this?
 * Times unforgotten, and treasures of things?
 * Swift years of liking and sweet long laughter,
 * That wist not well of the years thereafter
 * Till love woke, smitten at heart by a kiss,
 * With lips that trembled and trailing wings?
 * There lived a singer in France of old
 * By the tideless dolorous midland sea.
 * In a land of sand and ruin and gold
 * There shone one woman, and none but she.
 * And finding life for her love's sake fail,
 * Being fain to see her, he bade set sail,
 * Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold,
 * And praised God, seeing; and so died he.
 * Died, praising God for his gift and grace:
 * For she bowed down to him weeping, and said
 * "Live;" and her tears were shed on his face
 * Or ever the life in his face was shed.
 * The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung
 * Once, and her close lips touched him and clung
 * Once, and grew one with his lips for a space;
 * And so drew back, and the man was dead.
 * O brother, the gods were good to you.
 * Sleep, and be glad while the world endures.
 * Be well content as the years wear through;
 * Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures;
 * Give thanks for life, O brother, and death,
 * For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath,
 * For gifts she gave you, gracious and few,
 * Tears and kisses, that lady of yours.
 * Rest, and be glad of the gods; but I,
 * How shall I praise them, or how take rest?
 * There is not room under all the sky
 * For me that know not of worst or best,
 * Dream or desire of the days before,
 * Sweet things or bitterness, any more.
 * Love will not come to me now though I die,
 * As love came close to you, breast to breast.
 * I shall never be friends again with roses;
 * I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong
 * Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes,
 * As a wave of the sea turned back by song.
 * There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire,
 * Face to face with its own desire;
 * A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;
 * I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.
 * The pulse of war and passion of wonder,
 * The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,
 * The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,
 * The music burning at heart like wine,
 * An armed archangel whose hands raise up
 * All senses mixed in the spirit's cup
 * Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder —
 * These things are over, and no more mine.
 * These were a part of the playing I heard
 * Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife;
 * Love that sings and hath wings as a bird,
 * Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.
 * Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep
 * Than overwatching of eyes that weep,
 * Now time has done with his one sweet word,
 * The wine and leaven of lovely life.
 * I shall go my ways, tread out my measure,
 * Fill the days of my daily breath
 * With fugitive things not good to treasure,
 * Do as the world doth, say as it saith;
 * But if we had loved each other — O sweet,
 * Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet,
 * The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure
 * To feel you tread it to dust and death —
 * Ah, had I not taken my life up and given
 * All that life gives and the years let go,
 * The wine and honey, the balm and leaven,
 * The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?
 * Come life, come death, not a word be said;
 * Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?
 * I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,
 * If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?
 * Dream or desire of the days before,
 * Sweet things or bitterness, any more.
 * Love will not come to me now though I die,
 * As love came close to you, breast to breast.
 * I shall never be friends again with roses;
 * I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong
 * Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes,
 * As a wave of the sea turned back by song.
 * There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire,
 * Face to face with its own desire;
 * A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes;
 * I shall hate sweet music my whole life long.
 * The pulse of war and passion of wonder,
 * The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine,
 * The stars that sing and the loves that thunder,
 * The music burning at heart like wine,
 * An armed archangel whose hands raise up
 * All senses mixed in the spirit's cup
 * Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder —
 * These things are over, and no more mine.
 * These were a part of the playing I heard
 * Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife;
 * Love that sings and hath wings as a bird,
 * Balm of the wound and heft of the knife.
 * Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep
 * Than overwatching of eyes that weep,
 * Now time has done with his one sweet word,
 * The wine and leaven of lovely life.
 * I shall go my ways, tread out my measure,
 * Fill the days of my daily breath
 * With fugitive things not good to treasure,
 * Do as the world doth, say as it saith;
 * But if we had loved each other — O sweet,
 * Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet,
 * The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure
 * To feel you tread it to dust and death —
 * Ah, had I not taken my life up and given
 * All that life gives and the years let go,
 * The wine and honey, the balm and leaven,
 * The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?
 * Come life, come death, not a word be said;
 * Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?
 * I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,
 * If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?
 * The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?
 * Come life, come death, not a word be said;
 * Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?
 * I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,
 * If I cry to you then, will you hear or know?