Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
Algernon Charles Swinburne (18371909)Extracts from Atalanta in Calydon: Rococo
T
Touch lips and part with tears;
Once more and no more after,
Whatever comes with years.
We twain shall not remeasure
The ways that left us twain;
Nor crush the lees of pleasure
From sanguine grapes of pain.
What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wonder,
Or what for love with you?
Forget them till November,
And dream there ’s April yet;
Forget that I remember,
And dream that I forget.
And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
Till there ’s not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
A single pulse of pain.
Might quicken if they would;
Say that the soul is deathless;
Dream that the gods are good;
Say March may wed September,
And the time divorce regret;
But not that you remember,
And not that I forget.
What love scarce lives and hears:
We have seen on fervent faces
The pallor of strange tears:
We have trod the wine-vat’s treasure,
Whence, ripe to steam and stain,
Foams round the feet of pleasure
The blood-red must of pain.
And time bring back to time
The name of your first lover,
The ring of my first rhyme;
But rose-leaves of December
The frosts of June shall fret
The day that you remember,
The day that I forget.
In heaven we twain have known;
The grief of cruel kisses,
The joy whose mouth makes moan,
The pulse’s pause and measure,
Where in one furtive vein
Throbs through the heart of pleasure
The purple blood of pain.
And love for treason’s sake;
Room for the swift new seasons,
The years that burn and break,
Dismantle and dismember
Men’s days and dreams, Juliette,
For love may not remember,
But time will not forget.
Time withers him at root;
Bring all dead things and dying,
Reaped sheaf and ruined fruit,
Where, crushed by three days’ pressure,
Our three days’ love lies slain;
And earlier leaf of pleasure,
And latter flower of pain.
It may be flame will leap;
Unclose the soft close lashes,
Lift up the lids, and weep.
Light love’s extinguished ember,
Let one tear leave it wet
For one that you remember
And ten that you forget.