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قراءة كتاب A Dark Month From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V

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‏اللغة: English
A Dark Month
From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V

A Dark Month From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
الصفحة رقم: 4

class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="338" id="pgepubid00033"/> XII

Child, were you kinless and lonely—
Dear, were you kin to me—
My love were compassionate only
Or such as it needs would be.
But eyes of father and mother
Like sunlight shed on you shine:
What need you have heed of another
Such new strange love as is mine?
It is not meet if unruly
Hands take of the children's bread
And cast it to dogs; but truly
The dogs after all would be fed.
On crumbs from the children's table
That crumble, dropped from above,
My heart feeds, fed with unstable
Loose waifs of a child's light love.
Though love in your heart were brittle
As glass that breaks with a touch,
You haply would lend him a little
Who surely would give you much.

XIII

Here is a rough
Rude sketch of my friend,
Faint-coloured enough
And unworthily penned.
Fearlessly fair
And triumphant he stands,
And holds unaware
Friends' hearts in his hands;
Stalwart and straight
As an oak that should bring
Forth gallant and great
Fresh roses in spring.
On the paths of his pleasure
All graces that wait
What metre shall measure
What rhyme shall relate
Each action, each motion,
Each feature, each limb,
Demands a devotion
In honour of him:
Head that the hand
Of a god might have blest,
Laid lustrous and bland
On the curve of its crest:
Mouth sweeter than cherries,
Keen eyes as of Mars,
Browner than berries
And brighter than stars.
Nor colour nor wordy
Weak song can declare
The stature how sturdy,
How stalwart his air.
As a king in his bright
Presence-chamber may be,
So seems he in height—
Twice higher than your knee.
As a warrior sedate
With reserve of his power,
So seems he in state—
As tall as a flower:
As a rose overtowering
The ranks of the rest
That beneath it lie cowering,
Less bright than their best.
And his hands are as sunny
As ruddy ripe corn
Or the browner-hued honey
From heather-bells borne.
When summer sits proudest,
Fulfilled with its mirth,
And rapture is loudest
In air and on earth,
The suns of all hours
That have ripened the roots
Bring forth not such flowers
And beget not such fruits.
And well though I know it,
As fain would I write,
Child, never a poet
Could praise you aright.
I bless you? the blessing
Were less than a jest
Too poor for expressing;
I come to be blest,
With humble and dutiful
Heart, from above:
Bless me, O my beautiful
Innocent love!
This rhyme in your praise
With a smile was begun;
But the goal of his ways
Is uncovered to none,
Nor pervious till after
The limit impend;
It is not in laughter
These rhymes of you end.

XIV

Spring, and fall, and summer, and winter,
Which may Earth love least of them all,
Whose arms embrace as their signs imprint her,
Summer, or winter, or spring, or fall?
The clear-eyed spring with the wood-birds mating,
The rose-red summer with eyes aglow,
The yellow fall with serene eyes waiting,
The wild-eyed winter with hair all snow?
Spring's eyes are soft, but if frosts benumb her
As winter's own will her shrewd breath sting:
Storms may rend the raiment of summer,
And fall grow bitter as harsh-lipped spring.
One sign for summer and winter guides me,
One for spring, and the like for fall:
Whichever from sight of my friend divides me,
That is the worst ill season of all.

XV

Worse than winter is spring
If I come not to sight of my king:
But then what a spring will it be
When my king takes homage of me!
I send his grace from afar
Homage, as though to a star;
As a shepherd whose flock takes flight

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