Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

Extracts from Tristram of Lyonesse: Prelude: Tristram and Iseult

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 always 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 light;

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 guard his head

The whole world’s wrath and strength shall not strike dead;

Love, that if once his own hands make his grave

The whole world’s pity and sorrow shall not save;

Love, that for very life shall not be sold,

Nor bought nor bound with iron nor with gold;

So strong that heaven, could love bid heaven farewell,

Would turn to fruitless and unflowering hell;

So sweet that hell, to hell could love be given,

Would turn to splendid and sonorous heaven;

Love that is fire within three and light above,

And lives by grace of nothing but of love;

Through many and lovely thoughts and much desire

Led these twain to the life of tears and fire;

Through many and lovely days and much delight

Led these twain to the lifeless life of night.