Volume Ii Part 98 (2/2)

We have drained his lips at leisure, Till there's not left to drain A single sob of pleasure, A single pulse of pain.

Dream that the lips once breathless Might quicken if they would; Say that the soul is deathless; Dream that the G.o.ds are good; Say March may wed September, And time divorce regret; But not that you remember, And not that I forget.

We have heard from hidden places 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.

Remembrance may recover 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.

The snake that hides and hisses In heaven we twain have known; The grief of cruel kisses, The joy whose mouth makes moan; The pulses' pause and measure, Where in one furtive vein Throbs through the heart of pleasure The purpler blood of pain.

We have done with tears and treasons 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.

Life treads down love in flying, 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.

Breathe close upon the ashes, 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.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

RONDEL

These many years since we began to be, What have the G.o.ds done with us? what with me, What with my love? They have shown me fates and fears, Harsh springs, and fountains bitterer than the sea, Grief a fixed star, and joy a vane that veers, These many years.

With her, my Love,--with her have they done well?

But who shall answer for her? who shall tell Sweet things or sad, such things as no man hears?

May no tears fall, if no tears ever fell, From eyes more dear to me than starriest spheres, These many years!

But if tears ever touched, for any grief, Those eyelids folded like a white-rose leaf, Deep double sh.e.l.ls where through the eye-flower peers, Let them weep once more only, sweet and brief, Brief tears and bright, for one who gave her tears These many years!

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

THE OBLATION

Ask nothing more of me, sweet; All I can give you I give.

Heart of my heart, were it more, More would be laid at your feet: Love that should help you to live, Song that should spur you to soar.

All things were nothing to give Once to have sense of you more, Touch you and taste of you, sweet, Think you and breathe you and live, Swept of your wings as they soar, Trodden by chance of your feet.

I that have love and no more Give you but love of you, sweet: He that hath more, let him give; He that hath wings, let him soar; Mine is the heart at your feet Here, that must love you to live.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

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