Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Before the Mirror

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

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 rows

Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.

Behind the veil, forbidden,

Shut up from sight,

Love, is there sorrow hidden,

Is there delight?

Is joy thy dower or grief,

White rose of weary leaf,

Late rose whose life is brief, whose loves are light?

Soft snows that hard winds harden

Till each flake bite,

Fill all the flowerless garden

Whose flowers took flight

Long since, when summer ceased,

And men rose up from feast,

And warm west wind grew east, and warm day night.

‘Come snow, come wind or thunder

High up in air,

I watch my face, and wonder

At my bright hair;

Nought else exalts or grieves

The rose at heart, that heaves

With love of her own leaves and lips that pair.

‘She knows not loves that kiss’d 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.

‘I cannot see what pleasures

Or what pains were;

What pale new loves and treasures

New years will bear;

What beam will fall, what shower,

What grief or joy for dower;

But one thing knows the flower; the flower is fair.’

Glad, but not flush’d with gladness,

Since joys go by;

Sad, but not bent with sadness,

Since sorrows die;

Deep in the gleaming glass

She sees all past things pass,

And all sweet life that was lie down and lie.

There glowing ghosts of flowers

Draw down, draw nigh;

And wings of swift spent hours

Take flight and fly;

She sees by formless gleams,

She hears across cold streams,

Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh.

Face fallen and white throat lifted,

With sleepless eye

She sees old loves that drifted,

She knew not why,

Old loves and faded fears

Float down a stream that hears

The flowing of all men’s tears beneath the sky.