Algernon Charles Swinburne Quotes

Change lays not her hand upon truth.

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!

Out of Dindymus heavily laden Her lions draw bound and unfed A mother, a mortal, a maiden, A queen over death and the dead. She is cold, and her habit is lowly, Her temple of branches and sods; Most fruitful and virginal, holy, A mother of gods. She hath wasted with fire thine high places, She hath hidden and marred and made sad The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces Of gods that were goodly and glad. She slays, and her hands are not bloody; She moves as a moon in the wane, White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy, Our Lady of Pain.

There is no such thing as a dumb poet or a handless painter. The essence of an artist is that he should be articulate.

And her heart sprang in Iseult, and she drew
With all her spirit and life the sunrise through
And through her lips the keen triumphant air
Sea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were,
And through her eyes the whole rejoicing east
Sun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feast
Spread for the morning; and the imperious mirth
Of wind and light that moved upon the earth,
Making the spring, and all the fruitful might
And strong regeneration of delight
That swells the seedling leaf and sapling man,
Since the first life in the first world began
To burn and burgeon through void limbs and veins,
And the first love with sharp sweet procreant pains
To pierce and bring forth roses; yea, she felt
Through her own soul the sovereign morning melt,
And all the sacred passion of the sun;
And as the young clouds flamed and were undone
About him coming, touched and burnt away
In rosy ruin and yellow spoil of day,
The sweet veil of her body and corporal sense
Felt the dawn also cleave it, and incense
With light from inward and with effluent heat
The kindling soul through fleshly hands and feet.
And as the august great blossom of the dawn
Burst, and the full sun scarce from sea withdrawn
Seemed on the fiery water a flower afloat,
So as a fire the mighty morning smote
Throughout her, and incensed with the influent hour
Her whole soul's one great mystical red flo

Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate;
Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate
For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain;
And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown shall be pain.

If you were Queen of pleasure
And I were King of pain
We'd hunt down Love together,
Pluck out his flying-feather,
And teach his feet a measure,
And find his mouth a rein;
If you were Queen of pleasure
And I were King of pain.

On the mountains of memory by the world's wellsprings, in all man's eyes, where the light of life of him is on all past things, death only dies.

The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox.

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.

And lo, between the sundawn and the sun His day's work and his night's work are undone: And lo, between the nightfall and the light, He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.

She might come in to bride-bed: and he laughed,
As one that wist not well of wise love's craft,
And bade all bridal things be as she would.
Yet of his gentleness he gat not good;
For clothed and covered with the nuptial dark
Soft like a bride came Brangwain to King Mark,
And to the queen came Tristram; and the night
Fled, and ere danger of detective light
From the king sleeping Brangwain slid away,
And where had lain her handmaid Iseult lay.
And the king waking saw beside his head
That face yet passion-coloured, amorous red
From lips not his, and all that strange hair shed
Across the tissued pillows, fold on fold,
Innumerable, incomparable, all gold,
To fire men's eyes with wonder, and with love
Men's hearts; so shone its flowering crown above
The brows enwound with that imperial wreath,
And framed with fragrant radiance round the face beneath.
And the king marvelled, seeing with sudden start
Her very glory, and said out of his heart;
"What have I done of good for God to bless
That all this he should give me, tress on tress,
All this great wealth and wondrous? Was it this
That in mine arms I had all night to kiss,
And mix with me this beauty? this that seems
More fair than heaven doth in some tired saint's dreams,
Being part of that same heaven? yea, more, for he,
Though loved of God so, yet but seems to see,
But to me sinful such g

To say of shame - what is it? Of virtue - we can miss it; Of sin-we can kiss it, And it's no longer sin.

Wherever there is a grain of loyalty there is a glimpse of freedom.

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

And thither, ere sweet night had slain sweet day,
Iseult and Tristram took their wandering way,
And rested, and refreshed their hearts with cheer
In hunters' fashion of the woods; and here
More sweet it seemed, while this might be, to dwell
And take of all world's weariness farewell
Than reign of all world's lordship queen and king.
Nor here would time for three moon's changes bring
Sorrow nor thought of sorrow; but sweet earth
Fostered them like her babes of eldest birth,
Reared warm in pathless woods and cherished well.
And the sun sprang above the sea and fell,
And the stars rose and sank upon the sea;
And outlaw-like, in forest wise and free,
The rising and the setting of their lights
Found those twain dwelling all those days and nights.
And under change of sun and star and moon
Flourished and fell the chaplets woven of June,
And fair through fervours of the deepening sky
Panted and passed the hours that lit July,
And each day blessed them out of heaven above,
And each night crowned them with the crown of love.
Nor till the might of August overhead
Weighed on the world was yet one roseleaf shed
Of all their joy's warm coronal, nor aught
Touched them in passing ever with a thought
That ever this might end on any day
Or any night not love them where they lay;
But like a babbling tale of barren breath
Seemed all report and rumour he

Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver Sorrow ...

Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said
I wist not what, saving one word
Delight.
And all her face was honey to my mouth,
And all her body pasture to my eyes;
The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,
The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,
The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs
And glittering eyelids of my soul's desire.

Is not Precedent indeed a King of men? A Word from the Psalmist.

Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes.

When the hounds of Spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.

White rose in red rose-garden Is not so white; Snowdrops, that plead for pardon And pine for fright Because the hard East blows Over their maiden vows, Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.

Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.

Love, till dawn sunder night from day with fire Dividing my delight and my desire ...

Ask nothing more of me sweet;
All I can give you I give;
Heart of my heart were it more,
More would be laid at your feet..

Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal; Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night.

Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all.

The delight that consumes the desire, The desire that outruns the delight.

Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her: Love lies bleeding.

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower;
When these have gone by with their glories,
What shall rest of thee then, what remain,
O mystic and somber Delores,
Our Lady of Pain?

I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted And knew we should both forget.

I that have love and no more
Give you but love of you, sweet;
He that hath more, let him give;
He that hath wings, let him soar;
Mine is the heart at your feet
Here, that must love you to live.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.

There grows No herb of help to heal a coward heart.

Time stoops to no man's lure.

My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain When Time and God give judgment.

And the best and the worst of this is That neither is most to blame, If you have forgotten my kisses And I have forgotten your name.

Forget that I remember And dream that I forget.

In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part.

Hope knows not if fear speaks truth, nor fear whether hope be blind as she.

Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free; love me no more, but love my love of thee.

For no man under the sky lives twice

Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
That wear out the soul.

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

His speech is a burning fire.

Love, is it morning risen or night deceased
That makes the mirth of this triumphant east?
Is it bliss given or bitterness put by
That makes most glad men's hearts at love's high feast?
Grief smiles, joy weeps, that day should live and die.

"Is it with soul's thirst or with body's drouth
That summer yearns out sunward to the south,
With all the flowers that when thy birth drew nigh
Were molten in one rose to make thy mouth?
O love, what care though day should live and die?

"Is the sun glad of all love on earth,
The spirit and sense and work of things and worth?
Is the moon sad because the month must fly
And bring her death that can but bring back birth?
For all these things as day must live and die.

"Love, is it day that makes thee thy delight
Or thou that seest day made out of thy light?
Love, as the sun and sea are thou and I,
Sea without sun dark, sun without sea bright;
The sun is one though day should live and die.

"O which is elder, night or light, who knows?
And life or love, which first of these twain grows?
For life is born of love to wail and cry,
And love is born of life to heal his woes,
And light of night, that day should live and die.

"O sun of heaven above the wordly sea,
O very love, what light is this of thee!
My sea of soul is deep as thou art high,
But all thy light is shed through all of me

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?

At the door of life, by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death.

I dore not always touch her, lest the kiss
Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss,
Brief, bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin;
Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.

There is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.

The sun is all about the world we see, the breath and strength of every spring.

For words divide and rend But silence is most noble till the end.

Our way is where God knows
And Love knows where:
We are in Love's hand to-day.

And with light lips yet full of their swift smile,
And hands that wist not though they dug a grave,
Undid the hasps of gold, and drank, and gave,
And he drank after, a deep glad kingly draught:
And all their life changed in them, for they quaffed
Death; if it be death so to drink, and fare
As men who change and are what these twain were.
And shuddering with eyes full of fear and fire
And heart-stung with a serpentine desire
He turned and saw the terror in her eyes
That yearned upon him shining in such wise
As a star midway in the midnight fixed.
Their Galahault was the cup, and she that mixed;
Nor other hand there needed, nor sweet speech
To lure their lips together; each on each
Hung with strange eyes and hovered as a bird
Wounded, and each mouth trembled for a world;
Their heads neared, and their hands were drawn in one,
And they saw dark, though still the unsunken sun
Far through fine rain shot fire into the south;
And their four lips became one burning mouth.

Today will die tomorrow.

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.

No blast of air or fire of sun Puts out the light whereby we run With girdled loins our lamplit race, And each from each takes heart of grace And spirit till his turn be done.

A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal, Even while we hailed as fresh from birth A little soul.

Love, that is first and last of all things made,
The light that has the living world for shade,
The spirit that for temporal veil has on
The souls of all men woven in unison,
One fiery raiment with all lives inwrought
And lights of sunny and starry deed and thought,
And alway through new act and passion new
Shines the divine same body and beauty through,
The body spiritual of fire and light
That is to worldly noon as noon to night;
Love, that is flesh upon the spirit of man
And spirit within the flesh whence breath began;
Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime;
Love, that is blood within the veins of time;
That wrought the whole world without stroke of hand,
Shaping the breadth of sea, the length of land,
And with the pulse and motion of his breath
Through the great heart of the earth strikes life and death,
The sweet twain chords that make the sweet tune live
Through day and night of things alternative,
Through silence and through sound of stress and strife,
And ebb and flow of dying death and life:
Love, that sounds loud or light in all men's ears,
Whence all men's eyes take fire from sparks of tears,
That binds on all men's feet or chains or wings;
Love that is root and fruit of terrene things;
Love, that the whole world's waters shall not drown,
The whole world's fiery forces not burn down;
Love, that what time his own hands

In fierce March weather White waves break tether, And whirled together At either hand, Like weeds uplifted, The tree-trunks rifted In spars are drifted, Like foam or sand.

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran .

Change lays her hand not upon the truth.

Fate is a sea without a shore, and the soul is a rock that abides.

Who knows but on their sleep may rise Such light as never heaven let through To lighten earth from Paradise?

If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together, In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowerful closes, Green pleasure or grey grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf.

The half-brained creature to whom books are other than living things may see with the eyes of a bat and draw with the fingers of a mole his dullard's distinction between books and life: those who live the fuller life of a higher animal than he know that books are to poets as much part of that life as pictures are to painters or as music is to musicians, dead matter though they may be to the spiritually still-born children of dirt and dullness who find it possible and natural to live while dead in heart and brain.

While three men hold together, the kingdoms are less by three.

Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of mire and rime,
Before thy pale and fitful face
The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace
Through skies the morning scarce may climb.
Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,
But lit with hopes that light the year's.

O Love, O great god Love, what have I done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
My heart is harmless as my life's first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed.

She knows not loves that kissed her She knows not where. Art thou the ghost, my sister, White sister there, Am I the ghost, who knows? My hand, a fallen rose, Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care.

A baby's feet, like sea-shells pink Might tempt, should heaven see meet, An angel's lips to kiss, we think, A baby's feet.

Where might is, the right is:
Long purses make strong swords.
Let weakness learn meekness:
God save the House of Lords!

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.

His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.

There was a poor poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff, But the public, though dull, Had not such a skull As belonged to believers in Clough.

In a land of sand and ruin and gold
There shone one woman, and none but she

Thou has conquered, O pale Galilean.

Despair the twin-born of devotion.

To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things of life.

Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things.

All the world is bitter as a tear

The highest spiritual quality, the noblest property of mind a man can have, is this of loyalty ... a man with no loyalty in him, with no sense of love or reverence or devotion due to something outside and above his poor daily life, with its pains and pleasures, profits and losses, is as evil a case as man can be.

I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.

The loves and hours of the life of a man,
They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.

For the worst is this after all; if they knew me, not a soul upon earth would pity me.

You have a face that suits a woman
For her soul's screen
The sort of beauty that's called human
In hell, Faustine.