A BALLAD OF DEATH
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| Whistler, "London Bridge" (1881) |
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,Girdle thyself with sighing for a girthUpon the sides of mirth,Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine earsBe filled with rumour of people sorrowing;Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighsUpon the flesh to cleave,Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,And many sorrows after each his wiseFor armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.
O Love's lute heard about the lands of death,Left hanged upon the trees that were therein;O Love and Time and Sin,Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,Three lovers, each one evil spoken of;O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mineCame softer with her praise;Abide a little for our lady's love.The kisses of her mouth were more than wine,And more than peace the passage of her days.
O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see.O Time, thou shalt not find in any landTill, cast out of thine hand,The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee,Another woman fashioned like as this.O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in herWas made a goodly thing;Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss,With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelierThan lips of amorous roses in late spring.
By night there stood over against my bedQueen Venus with a hood striped gold and black,Both sides drawn fully backFrom brows wherein the sad blood failed of red,And temples drained of purple and full of death.Her curled hair had the wave of sea-waterAnd the sea's gold in it.Her eyes were as a dove's that sickeneth.Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her,And pearl and purple and amber on her feet.
Upon her raiment of dyed sendalineWere painted all the secret ways of loveAnd covered things thereof,That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine;Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves,And brides that kept within the bride-chamberTheir garment of soft shame,And weeping faces of the wearied lovesThat swoon in sleep and awake wearier,With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame.
The tears that through her eyelids fell on meMade mine own bitter where they ran betweenAs blood had fallen therein,She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and seeIf any glad thing be or any goodNow the best thing is taken forth of us;Even she to whom all praiseWas as one flower in a great multitude,One glorious flower of many and glorious,One day found gracious among many days:
Even she whose handmaiden was Love—to whomAt kissing times across her stateliest bedKings bowed themselves and shedPale wine, and honey with the honeycomb,And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering;Even she between whose lips the kiss becameAs fire and frankincense;Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king,Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame,Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.
Then I beheld, and lo on the other sideMy lady's likeness crowned and robed and dead.Sweet still, but now not red,Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died.And sweet, but emptied of the blood's blue shade,The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes.And sweet, but like spoilt gold,The weight of colour in her tresses weighed.And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes,The body that was clothed with love of old.
Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hairAnd all the hollow bosom of her gown—Ah! that my tears ran downEven to the place where many kisses were,Even where her parted breast-flowers have place,Even where they are cloven apart—who knows not this?Ah! the flowers cleave apartAnd their sweet fills the tender interspace;Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kissEre their fine gold was tarnished at the heart.
Ah! in the days when God did good to me,Each part about her was a righteous thing;Her mouth an almsgiving,The glory of her garments charity,The beauty of her bosom a good deed,In the good days when God kept sight of us;Love lay upon her eyes,And on that hair whereof the world takes heed;And all her body was more virtuousThan souls of women fashioned otherwise.
Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine handsAnd sheaves of brier and many rusted sheavesRain-rotten in rank lands,Waste marigold and late unhappy leavesAnd grass that fades ere any of it be mown;And when thy bosom is filled full thereofSeek out Death's face ere the light altereth,And say "My master that was thrall to LoveIs become thrall to Death."Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan,But make no sojourn in thy outgoing;For haply it may beThat when thy feet return at eveningDeath shall come in with thee.
Swinburne (1837-1909). Poems and ballads. London: William Heinemann, 1917.
Swinburne (1837-1909). Poems and ballads. London: William Heinemann, 1917.
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