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Selected Poems
Hardy and Pound are just two of the major poets of this century who fell under the spell of Swinburne's music. His inclusiveness is tonic.
- GenresPoetry
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
2 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Algernon Charles Swinburne
1,203 books139 followersIn musical, often erotic verse, British poet and critic Algernon Charles Swinburne wrote and attacked the conventions of Victorian morality.
This controversial Englishman in his own day invented the roundel form and some novels and contributed to the famous eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerno...
This controversial Englishman in his own day invented the roundel form and some novels and contributed to the famous eleventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerno...
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 29, 2022
We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved
As the moon moves, loving the world;
...
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.
***
Leave go my hands, let me catch breath and see;
Let the dew-fall drench either side of me;
Clear apple leaves are soft upon that moon
Seen sidelong like a blossom in the tree;
Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.
The grass is thick and cool, it lets us lie.
Kissed upon either cheek and either eye,
I turn to thee as some green afternoon
Turns toward sunset, and is loth to die;
Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.
***
O heart whose beating blood was running song,
O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were,
Help us for thy free love's sake to be free,
True for thy truth's sake, for thy strength's sake strong,
Till very liberty make clean and fair
The nursing earth as the sepulchral sea.
***
This flower that smells of honey and the sea,
White laurustine, seems in my hand to be
A white star made of memory long ago
Lit in the heaven of dear times...
A star out of the skies love used to know
Here held in hand, a stray left yet to show
What flowers my heart was full of in the days
That are long since gone...
...
This that the winter and the wind made bright,
And this that lived upon Italian light,
Before I throw them and these words away,
Who knows but I what memories too take flight?
***
All that may pass, and all that must ensure,
Song speaks not, painting shows not: more intense
And keen than these, art wakes with music's lure
Soul within sense.
***
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.
***
Heaven above them, bright as children's eyes or dreams,
Earth about them, sweet as glad soft sleep can show
Earth and sky and sea, a world that scarcely seems
Even in children's eyes less fair than life that gleams
Through the sleep that none but sinless eyes may know.
...
Still the rosary lives and shines on memory, free
Now from fear of death or change as childhood, fled
Years on years before its last live leaves were shed:
None may mar it now, as none may stain the sea.
As the moon moves, loving the world;
...
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.
***
Leave go my hands, let me catch breath and see;
Let the dew-fall drench either side of me;
Clear apple leaves are soft upon that moon
Seen sidelong like a blossom in the tree;
Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.
The grass is thick and cool, it lets us lie.
Kissed upon either cheek and either eye,
I turn to thee as some green afternoon
Turns toward sunset, and is loth to die;
Ah God, ah God, that day should be so soon.
***
O heart whose beating blood was running song,
O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were,
Help us for thy free love's sake to be free,
True for thy truth's sake, for thy strength's sake strong,
Till very liberty make clean and fair
The nursing earth as the sepulchral sea.
***
This flower that smells of honey and the sea,
White laurustine, seems in my hand to be
A white star made of memory long ago
Lit in the heaven of dear times...
A star out of the skies love used to know
Here held in hand, a stray left yet to show
What flowers my heart was full of in the days
That are long since gone...
...
This that the winter and the wind made bright,
And this that lived upon Italian light,
Before I throw them and these words away,
Who knows but I what memories too take flight?
***
All that may pass, and all that must ensure,
Song speaks not, painting shows not: more intense
And keen than these, art wakes with music's lure
Soul within sense.
***
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.
***
Heaven above them, bright as children's eyes or dreams,
Earth about them, sweet as glad soft sleep can show
Earth and sky and sea, a world that scarcely seems
Even in children's eyes less fair than life that gleams
Through the sleep that none but sinless eyes may know.
...
Still the rosary lives and shines on memory, free
Now from fear of death or change as childhood, fled
Years on years before its last live leaves were shed:
None may mar it now, as none may stain the sea.
July 20, 2018
Molto bravo. Difficile seguire il filo dei suoi pensieri, bisogna lasciarsi catturare dalle immagini e dal suono delle parole.
February 7, 2016
Wonderful selection of Swinbourne's work, whilst his work is available free via Gutenberg Project it is nice to have a physical book to read. His poetry on love and longing have some of the most beautiful lyrical prose, certainly a poet I will be coming back to often
Read
September 10, 2009Actually I'm reading "Poem", a 1919 edition. But I intend to add Swinburne to my personal library. His imagery is wonderful.
January 8, 2012
This isn't actually the edition I'm reading; mine is by Bloomsbury Poetry Classics, selected by Ian Hamilton.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews