March: An ode / A.C. Swinburne

March: An Ode

    I

Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of 

    winter had passed out of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that 

    fulfil us in sleep with delight;

The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and 

    branches that glittered and swayed
Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens 

    all flowers till it fade
That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than 

    the day, nor the day than the night,

Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the 

    madness and might in thee made,
March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that 

    enkindle the season they smite.

    II

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and 

    spoil of the snow,
And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops 

    that only thy wrath could lay low,
How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that 

    exults to be born
So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness whose laughter puts 

    winter and sorrow to scorn?
Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead 

    is molten: thy lips are aglow
As a lover's that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and 

    tresses yet wasted and torn,
Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her 

    spirit the sense of thee flow.

    III

Fain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the wind and the sun 

    have dispelled and consumed,
Those full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose luminous burden 

    the branches implumed
Hung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not as birds are, but 

    petalled as flowers,
Each tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and carved, or a fountain 

    that shines as it showers,
But fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to last till by time or 

    by tempest entombed,
As a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of its doom is no 

    more than an hour's,

One hour of the sun's when the warm wind wakes him to wither the snow-

    flowers that froze as they bloomed.

    IV

As the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April subdues thee, and 

    yields up his kingdom to May;

So time overcomes the regret that is born of delight as it passes in passion 

    away,
And leaves but a dream for desire to rejoice in or mourn for with tears or 

    thanksgivings; but thou,
Bright god that art gone from us, maddest and gladdest of months, to 

    what goal hast thou gone from us now?

For somewhere surely the storm of thy laughter that lightens, the beat of 

    thy wings that play,
Must flame as a fire through the world, and the heavens that we know not 

    rejoice in thee: surely thy brow
Hath lost not its radiance of empire, thy spirit the joy that impelled it on 

    quest as for prey.

    V

Are thy feet on the ways of the limitless waters, thy wings on the winds of 

    the waste north sea?
Are the fires of the false north dawn over heavens where summer is 

    stormful and strong like thee
Now bright in the sight of thine eyes? are the bastions of icebergs assailed 

    by the blast of thy breath?
Is it March with the wild north world when April is waning? the word that 

    the changed year saith,
Is it echoed to northward with rapture of passion reiterate from spirits 

    triumphant as we
Whose hearts were uplift at the blast of thy clarions as men's rearisen 

    from a sleep that was death

And kindled to life that was one with the world's and with thine? hast thou 

    set not the whole world free?

    VI

For the breath of thy lips is freedom, and freedom's the sense of thy spirit, 

    the sound of thy song,
Glad god of the north-east wind, whose heart is as high as the hands of thy 

    kingdom are strong,
Thy kingdom whose empire is terror and joy, twin-featured and fruitful of 

    births divine,
Days lit with the flame of the lamps of the flowers, and nights that are 

    drunken with dew for wine,
And sleep not for joy of the stars that deepen and quicken, a denser and 

    fierier throng,
And the world that thy breath bade whiten and tremble rejoices at heart as 

    they strengthen and shine,
And earth gives thanks for the glory bequeathed her, and knows of thy 

    reign that it wrought not wrong.

    VII

Thy spirit is quenched not, albeit we behold not thy face in the crown of 

    the steep sky's arch,
And the bold first buds of the whin wax golden, and witness arise of the 

    thorn and the larch:
Wild April, enkindled to laughter and storm by the kiss of the wildest of 

    winds that blow,
Calls loud on his brother for witness; his hands that were laden with 

    blossom are sprinkled with snow,
And his lips breathe winter, and laugh, and relent; and the live woods feel 

    not the frost's flame parch;
For the flame of the spring that consumes not but quickens is felt at the 

    heart of the forest aglow,
And the sparks that enkindled and fed it were strewn from the hands of 

    the gods of the winds of March.

~~
A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909)
from Poems and Ballads, Third series, 1889

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

A.C. Swinburne biography

"March: An Ode" read by Richard Mitchley. Courtesy Richard Mitchley - Topic.

When the Hounds of Spring / A.C. Swinburne

Chorus

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;
And the brown bright nightingale amorous      
Is half assuaged for Itylus,
For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,
    The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.

Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
    Maiden most perfect, lady of light,      
With a noise of winds and many rivers,
    With a clamor of waters, and with might;
Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet;
For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,    
    Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.

Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
    Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?
O that man’s heart were as fire and could spring to her,
    Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!    
For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player;
For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
    And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.

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 remember’d is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,  
And in green underwood and cover
    Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

The full streams feed on flower of rushes,
    Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,
The faint fresh flame of the young year flushes  
    From leaf to flower and flower to fruit;
And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,
And the oat is heard above the lyre,
And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushes
    The chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.  

And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,
    Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,
Follows with dancing and fills with delight
    The Mænad and the Bassarid;
And soft as lips that laugh and hide  
The laughing leaves of the trees divide,
And screen from seeing and leave in sight
    The god pursuing, the maiden hid.

The ivy falls with the Bacchanal’s hair
    Over her eyebrows, hiding her eyes;
The wild vine slipping down leaves bare
    Her bright breast shortening into sighs;
The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,
But the berried ivy catches and cleaves
To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare      
    The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.

~~
A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909)
from Atalanta in Calydon, 1865

[Poem is in the public domain world-wide]

A.C. Swinburne biography

"When the Hounds of Spring" poem animation by poetryreincarnations.

August / A.C. Swinburne

August

There were four apples on the bough,
Half gold half red, that one might know
The blood was ripe inside the core;
The colour of the leaves was more
Like stems of yellow corn that grow
Through all the gold June meadow’s floor.

The warm smell of the fruit was good
To feed on, and the split green wood,
With all its bearded lips and stains
Of mosses in the cloven veins,
Most pleasant, if one lay or stood
In sunshine or in happy rains.

There were four apples on the tree,
Red stained through gold, that all might see
The sun went warm from core to rind;
The green leaves made the summer blind
In that soft place they kept for me
With golden apples shut behind.

The leaves caught gold across the sun,
And where the bluest air begun,
Thirsted for song to help the heat;
As I to feel my lady’s feet
Draw close before the day were done;
Both lips grew dry with dreams of it.

In the mute August afternoon
They trembled to some undertune
Of music in the silver air;
Great pleasure was it to be there
Till green turned duskier and the moon
Coloured the corn-sheaves like gold hair.

That August time it was delight
To watch the red moons wane to white
’Twixt grey seamed stems of apple-trees;
A sense of heavy harmonies
Grew on the growth of patient night,
More sweet than shapen music is.

But some three hours before the moon
The air, still eager from the noon,
Flagged after heat, not wholly dead;
Against the stem I leant my head;
The colour soothed me like a tune,
Green leaves all round the gold and red.

I lay there till the warm smell grew
More sharp, when flecks of yellow dew
Between the round ripe leaves had blurred
The rind with stain and wet; I heard
A wind that blew and breathed and blew,
Too weak to alter its one word.

The wet leaves next the gentle fruit
Felt smoother, and the brown tree-root
Felt the mould warmer: I too felt
(As water feels the slow gold melt
Right through it when the day burns mute)
The peace of time wherein love dwelt.

There were four apples on the tree,
Gold stained on red that all might see
The sweet blood filled them to the core:
The colour of her hair is more
Like stems of fair faint gold, that be
Mown from the harvest’s middle floor.

~~
A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909)
from Poems and Ballads, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

A.C. Swinburne biography

"August" read by Richard Mitchley. Courtesy Richard Mitchley - Topic.

Hendecasyllabics / A.C. Swinburne

Hendecasyllabics

In the month of the long decline of roses
I, beholding the summer dead before me,
Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent,
Gazing eagerly where above the sea-mark
Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions
Half divided the eyelids of the sunset;
Till I heard as it were a noise of waters
Moving tremulous under feet of angels
Multitudinous, out of all the heavens;
Knew the fluttering wind, the fluttered foliage,
Shaken fitfully, full of sound and shadow;
And saw, trodden upon by noiseless angels,
Long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight,
Sweet sad straits in a soft subsiding channel,
Blown about by the lips of winds I knew not,
Winds not born in the north nor any quarter,
Winds not warm with the south nor any sunshine;
Heard between them a voice of exultation,
"Lo, the summer is dead, the sun is faded,
Even like as a leaf the year is withered,
All the fruits of the day from all her branches
Gathered, neither is any left to gather.
All the flowers are dead, the tender blossoms,
All are taken away; the season wasted,
Like an ember among the fallen ashes.
Now with light of the winter days, with moonlight,
Light of snow, and the bitter light of hoarfrost,
We bring flowers that fade not after autumn,
Pale white chaplets and crowns of latter seasons,
Fair false leaves (but the summer leaves were falser),
Woven under the eyes of stars and planets
When low light was upon the windy reaches
Where the flower of foam was blown, a lily
Dropt among the sonorous fruitless furrows
And green fields of the sea that make no pasture:
Since the winter begins, the weeping winter,
All whose flowers are tears, and round his temples
Iron blossom of frost is bound for ever."

~~

A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909)

from Poems and Ballads, 1866

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Algernon Swinburne biography

"Hendecasyllabics" read by Lawrence Calablaster.