قراءة كتاب A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems

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‏اللغة: English

A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems

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المؤلف:

Swinburne Algernon Charles

دار النشر: Project Gutenberg

الصفحة رقم: 3

many a century since thy funeral chime

Rang, and men deemed it death’s most direful crime

To have spared not thee for very love or shame;

And yet, while mists round last year’s memories climb,

Our father Chaucer, here we praise thy name.

Each turn of the old wild road whereon we stray,

Meseems, might bring us face to face with one

Whom seeing we could not but give thanks, and pray

For England’s love our father and her son

To speak with us as once in days long done

With all men, sage and churl and monk and mime,

Who knew not as we know the soul sublime

That sang for song’s love more than lust of fame.

Yet, though this be not, yet, in happy time,

Our father Chaucer, here we praise thy name.

Friend, even as bees about the flowering thyme,

Years crowd on years, till hoar decay begrime

Names once beloved; but, seeing the sun the same,

As birds of autumn fain to praise the prime,

Our father Chaucer, here we praise thy name.

THE MILL GARDEN.

Stately stand the sunflowers, glowing down the garden-side,

Ranged in royal rank arow along the warm grey wall,

Whence their deep disks burn at rich midnoon afire with pride,

Even as though their beams indeed were sunbeams, and the tall

Sceptral stems bore stars whose reign endures, not flowers that fall.

Lowlier laughs and basks the kindlier flower of homelier fame,

Held by love the sweeter that it blooms in Shakespeare’s name,

Fragrant yet as though his hand had touched and made it thrill,

Like the whole world’s heart, with warm new life and gladdening flame.

Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!

Softlier here the flower-soft feet of refluent seasons glide,

Lightlier breathes the long low note of change’s gentler call.

Wind and storm and landslip feed the lone sea’s gulf outside,

Half a seamew’s first flight hence; but scarce may these appal

Peace, whose perfect seal is set for signet here on all.

Steep and deep and sterile, under fields no plough can tame,

Dip the cliffs full-fledged with poppies red as love or shame,

Wide wan daisies bleak and bold, or herbage harsh and chill;

Here the full clove pinks and wallflowers crown the love they claim.

Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!

All the place breathes low, but not for fear lest ill betide,

Soft as roses answering roses, or a dove’s recall.

Little heeds it how the seaward banks may stoop and slide,

How the winds and years may hold all outer things in thrall,

How their wrath may work on hoar church tower and boundary wall.

Far and wide the waste and ravin of their rule proclaim

Change alone the changeless lord of things, alone the same:

Here a flower is stronger than the winds that work their will,

Or the years that wing their way through darkness toward their aim.

Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!

Friend, the home that smiled us welcome hither when we came,

When we pass again with summer, surely should reclaim

Somewhat given of heart’s thanksgiving more than words fulfil—

More than song, were song more sweet than all but love, might frame.

Fair befall the fair green close that lies below the mill!

A SEA-MARK.

Rains have left the sea-banks ill to climb:

Waveward sinks the loosening seaboard’s floor:

Half the sliding cliffs are mire and slime.

Earth, a fruit rain-rotted to the core,

Drops dissolving down in flakes, that pour

Dense as gouts from eaves grown foul with grime.

One sole rock which years that scathe not score

Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Time were even as even the rainiest clime,

Life were even as even this lapsing shore,

Might not aught outlive their trustless prime:

Vainly fear would wail or hope implore,

Vainly grief revile or love adore

Seasons clothed in sunshine, rain, or rime

Now for me one comfort held in store

Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Once, by fate’s default or chance’s crime,

Each apart, our burdens each we bore;

Heard, in monotones like bells that chime,

Chime the sounds of sorrows, float and soar

Joy’s full carols, near or far before;

Heard not yet across the alternate rhyme

Time’s tongue tell what sign set fast of yore

Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Friend, the sign we knew not heretofore

Towers in sight here present and sublime.

Faith in faith established evermore

Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

THE CLIFFSIDE PATH.

Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down

We, before the night upon his grave be sealed.

Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town,

High before us heaves the steep rough silent field.

Breach by ghastlier breach, the cliffs collapsing yield:

Half the path is broken, half the banks divide;

Flawed and crumbled, riven and rent, they cleave and slide

Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of girdling sand

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