A Century of Roundels Part 1

A Century of Roundels.

by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

DEDICATION TO CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI

Songs light as these may sound, though deep and strong The heart spake through them, scarce should hope to please Ears tuned to strains of loftier thoughts than throng Songs light as these.

Yet grace may set their sometime doubt at ease, Nor need their too rash reverence fear to wrong The shrine it serves at and the hope it sees.

For childlike loves and laughters thence prolong Notes that bid enter, fearless as the breeze, Even to the shrine of holiest-hearted song, Songs light as these.

IN HARBOUR

I.

Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by; To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us Goodnight and goodbye.

A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh; But were we not fools and blind, by day to devote us As thralls to the darkness, unseen of the sundawn's eye?

We have drunken of Lethe at length, we have eaten of lotus; What hurts it us here that sorrows are born and die?

We have said to the dream that caressed and the dread that smote us Goodnight and goodbye.

II.

Outside of the port ye are moored in, lying Close from the wind and at ease from the tide, What sounds come swelling, what notes fall dying Outside?

They will not cease, they will not abide: Voices of presage in darkness crying Pa.s.s and return and relapse aside.

Ye see not, but hear ye not wild wings flying To the future that wakes from the past that died?

Is grief still sleeping, is joy not sighing Outside?

THE WAY OF THE WIND

The wind's way in the deep sky's hollow None may measure, as none can say How the heart in her shows the swallow The wind's way.

Hope nor fear can avail to stay Waves that whiten on wrecks that wallow, Times and seasons that wane and slay.

Life and love, till the strong night swallow Thought and hope and the red last ray, Swim the waters of years that follow The wind's way.

'HAD I WIST'

Had I wist, when life was like a warm wind playing Light and loud through sundawn and the dew's bright trust, How the time should come for hearts to sigh in saying 'Had I wist' -

Surely not the roses, laughing as they kissed, Not the lovelier laugh of seas in suns.h.i.+ne swaying, Should have lured my soul to look thereon and list.

Now the wind is like a soul cast out and praying Vainly, prayers that pierce not ears when hearts resist: Now mine own soul sighs, adrift as wind and straying, 'Had I wist.'

RECOLLECTIONS

I.

Years upon years, as a course of clouds that thicken Thronging the ways of the wind that s.h.i.+fts and veers, Pa.s.s, and the flames of remembered fires requicken Years upon years.

Surely the thought in a man's heart hopes or fears Now that forgetfulness needs must here have stricken Anguish, and sweetened the sealed-up springs of tears.

Ah, but the strength of regrets that strain and sicken, Yearning for love that the veil of death endears, Slackens not wing for the wings of years that quicken - Years upon years.

II.

Years upon years, and the flame of love's high altar Trembles and sinks, and the sense of listening ears Heeds not the sound that it heard of love's blithe psalter Years upon years.

Only the sense of a heart that hearkens hears, Louder than dreams that a.s.sail and doubts that palter, Sorrow that slept and that wakes ere sundawn peers.

Wakes, that the heart may behold, and yet not falter, Faces of children as stars unknown of, spheres Seen but of love, that endures though all things alter, Years upon years.

III.

Years upon years, as a watch by night that pa.s.ses, Pa.s.s, and the light of their eyes is fire that sears Slowly the hopes of the fruit that life ama.s.ses Years upon years.

Pale as the glimmer of stars on moorland meres Lighten the shadows reverberate from the gla.s.ses Held in their hands as they pa.s.s among their peers.

Lights that are shadows, as ghosts on graveyard gra.s.ses, Moving on paths that the moon of memory cheers, Shew but as mists over cloudy mountain pa.s.ses Years upon years.

TIME AND LIFE

I.

Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame Ere the change of things and thoughts requicken, Time, thy name.