SWINBURNE
England, queen of the waves, whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee round,Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen found?Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken, acclaims thee crowned.Times may change, and the skies grow strange with signs of treason, and fraud, and fear:Foes in union of strange communion may rise against thee from far and near:Sloth and greed on thy strength may feed as cankers waxing from year to year.Yet, though treason and fierce unreason should league and lie and defame and smite,We that know thee, how far below thee the hatred burns of the sons of night,We that love thee, behold above thee the witness written of life in light.Life that shines from thee shows forth signs that none may read not but eyeless foes:Hate, born blind, in his abject mind grows hopeful now but as madness grows:Love, born wise, with exultant eyes adores thy glory, beholds and glows.Truth is in thee, and none may win thee to lie, forsaking the face of truth:Freedom lives by the grace she gives thee, born again from thy deathless youth:Faith should fail, and the world turn pale, wert thou the prey of the serpent’s tooth.Greed and fraud, unabashed, unawed, may strive to sting thee at heel in vain:Craft and fear and mistrust may leer and mourn and murmur and plead and plain:Thou art thou: and thy sunbright brow is hers that blasted the strength of Spain.Mother, mother beloved, none other could claim in place of thee England’s place:Earth bears none that beholds the sun so pure of record, so clothed with grace:Dear our mother, nor son nor brother is thine, as strong or as fair of face.How shall thou be abased? or how shall fear take hold of thy heart? of thine,England, maiden immortal, laden with charge of life and with hopes divine?Earth shall wither, when eyes turned hither behold not light in her darkness shine.England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy glory, free,Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he worships thee;None may sing thee: the sea-wind’s wing beats down our songs as it hails the sea.Algernon Charles Swinburne.
England, queen of the waves, whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee round,Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen found?Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken, acclaims thee crowned.Times may change, and the skies grow strange with signs of treason, and fraud, and fear:Foes in union of strange communion may rise against thee from far and near:Sloth and greed on thy strength may feed as cankers waxing from year to year.Yet, though treason and fierce unreason should league and lie and defame and smite,We that know thee, how far below thee the hatred burns of the sons of night,We that love thee, behold above thee the witness written of life in light.Life that shines from thee shows forth signs that none may read not but eyeless foes:Hate, born blind, in his abject mind grows hopeful now but as madness grows:Love, born wise, with exultant eyes adores thy glory, beholds and glows.Truth is in thee, and none may win thee to lie, forsaking the face of truth:Freedom lives by the grace she gives thee, born again from thy deathless youth:Faith should fail, and the world turn pale, wert thou the prey of the serpent’s tooth.Greed and fraud, unabashed, unawed, may strive to sting thee at heel in vain:Craft and fear and mistrust may leer and mourn and murmur and plead and plain:Thou art thou: and thy sunbright brow is hers that blasted the strength of Spain.Mother, mother beloved, none other could claim in place of thee England’s place:Earth bears none that beholds the sun so pure of record, so clothed with grace:Dear our mother, nor son nor brother is thine, as strong or as fair of face.How shall thou be abased? or how shall fear take hold of thy heart? of thine,England, maiden immortal, laden with charge of life and with hopes divine?Earth shall wither, when eyes turned hither behold not light in her darkness shine.England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy glory, free,Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he worships thee;None may sing thee: the sea-wind’s wing beats down our songs as it hails the sea.Algernon Charles Swinburne.
England, queen of the waves, whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee round,Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen found?Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken, acclaims thee crowned.Times may change, and the skies grow strange with signs of treason, and fraud, and fear:Foes in union of strange communion may rise against thee from far and near:Sloth and greed on thy strength may feed as cankers waxing from year to year.
Yet, though treason and fierce unreason should league and lie and defame and smite,We that know thee, how far below thee the hatred burns of the sons of night,We that love thee, behold above thee the witness written of life in light.
Life that shines from thee shows forth signs that none may read not but eyeless foes:Hate, born blind, in his abject mind grows hopeful now but as madness grows:Love, born wise, with exultant eyes adores thy glory, beholds and glows.Truth is in thee, and none may win thee to lie, forsaking the face of truth:Freedom lives by the grace she gives thee, born again from thy deathless youth:Faith should fail, and the world turn pale, wert thou the prey of the serpent’s tooth.
Greed and fraud, unabashed, unawed, may strive to sting thee at heel in vain:Craft and fear and mistrust may leer and mourn and murmur and plead and plain:Thou art thou: and thy sunbright brow is hers that blasted the strength of Spain.
Mother, mother beloved, none other could claim in place of thee England’s place:Earth bears none that beholds the sun so pure of record, so clothed with grace:Dear our mother, nor son nor brother is thine, as strong or as fair of face.How shall thou be abased? or how shall fear take hold of thy heart? of thine,England, maiden immortal, laden with charge of life and with hopes divine?Earth shall wither, when eyes turned hither behold not light in her darkness shine.
England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy glory, free,Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he worships thee;None may sing thee: the sea-wind’s wing beats down our songs as it hails the sea.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
The weary day rins down and dies,The weary night wears through:And never an hour is fair wi’ flower,And never a flower wi’ dew.I would the day were night for me,I would the night were day:For then would I stand in my ain fair land,As now in dreams I may.O lordly flow the Loire and Seine,And loud the dark Durance:But bonnier shine the braes of TyneThan a’ the fields of France;And the waves of Till that speak sae stillGleam goodlier where they glance.O weel were they that fell fightingOn dark Drumossie’s day:They keep their hame ayont the faemAnd we die far away.O sound they sleep, and saft, and deep,But night and day wake we;And ever between the sea-banks greenSounds loud the sundering sea.And ill we sleep, sae sair we weep,But sweet and fast sleep they;And the mool that haps them roun’ and laps themIs e’en their country’s clay;But the land we tread that are not deadIs strange as night by day.Strange as night in a strange man’s sight,Though fair as dawn it be:For what is here that a stranger’s cheerShould yet wax blithe to see?The hills stand steep, the dells lie deep,The fields are green and gold:The hill-streams sing, and the hill-sides ring,As ours at home of old.But hills and flowers are nane of ours,And ours are over sea:And the kind strange land whereon we stand,It wotsna what were weOr ever we came, wi’ scathe and shame,To try what end might be.Scathe, and shame, and a waefu’ name,And a weary time and strange,Have they that seeing a weird for dreeingCan die, and cannot change.Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn,Though sair be they to dree:But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide,Mair keen than wind and sea.Ill may we thole the night’s watches,And ill the weary day:And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep,A waefu’ gift gie they;For the sangs they sing us, the sights they bring us,The morn blaws all away.On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw,The burn rins blithe and fain:There’s nought wi’ me I wadna gieTo look thereon again.On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide:There sounds nae hunting-hornThat rings sae sweet as the winds that beatRound banks where Tyne is born.The Wansbeck sings with all her springs,The bents and braes give ear;But the wood that rings wi’ the sang she singsI may not see nor hear;For far and far thae blithe burns are,And strange is a’ thing near.The light there lightens, the day there brightens,The loud wind there lives free:Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by meThat I wad hear or see.But O gin I were there again,Afar ayont the faem,Cauld and dead in the sweet, saft bedThat haps my sires at hame!We’ll see nae mair the sea-banks fair,And the sweet grey gleaming sky,And the lordly strand of Northumberland,And the goodly towers thereby;And none shall know but the winds that blowThe graves wherein we lie.Algernon Charles Swinburne.
The weary day rins down and dies,The weary night wears through:And never an hour is fair wi’ flower,And never a flower wi’ dew.I would the day were night for me,I would the night were day:For then would I stand in my ain fair land,As now in dreams I may.O lordly flow the Loire and Seine,And loud the dark Durance:But bonnier shine the braes of TyneThan a’ the fields of France;And the waves of Till that speak sae stillGleam goodlier where they glance.O weel were they that fell fightingOn dark Drumossie’s day:They keep their hame ayont the faemAnd we die far away.O sound they sleep, and saft, and deep,But night and day wake we;And ever between the sea-banks greenSounds loud the sundering sea.And ill we sleep, sae sair we weep,But sweet and fast sleep they;And the mool that haps them roun’ and laps themIs e’en their country’s clay;But the land we tread that are not deadIs strange as night by day.Strange as night in a strange man’s sight,Though fair as dawn it be:For what is here that a stranger’s cheerShould yet wax blithe to see?The hills stand steep, the dells lie deep,The fields are green and gold:The hill-streams sing, and the hill-sides ring,As ours at home of old.But hills and flowers are nane of ours,And ours are over sea:And the kind strange land whereon we stand,It wotsna what were weOr ever we came, wi’ scathe and shame,To try what end might be.Scathe, and shame, and a waefu’ name,And a weary time and strange,Have they that seeing a weird for dreeingCan die, and cannot change.Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn,Though sair be they to dree:But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide,Mair keen than wind and sea.Ill may we thole the night’s watches,And ill the weary day:And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep,A waefu’ gift gie they;For the sangs they sing us, the sights they bring us,The morn blaws all away.On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw,The burn rins blithe and fain:There’s nought wi’ me I wadna gieTo look thereon again.On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide:There sounds nae hunting-hornThat rings sae sweet as the winds that beatRound banks where Tyne is born.The Wansbeck sings with all her springs,The bents and braes give ear;But the wood that rings wi’ the sang she singsI may not see nor hear;For far and far thae blithe burns are,And strange is a’ thing near.The light there lightens, the day there brightens,The loud wind there lives free:Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by meThat I wad hear or see.But O gin I were there again,Afar ayont the faem,Cauld and dead in the sweet, saft bedThat haps my sires at hame!We’ll see nae mair the sea-banks fair,And the sweet grey gleaming sky,And the lordly strand of Northumberland,And the goodly towers thereby;And none shall know but the winds that blowThe graves wherein we lie.Algernon Charles Swinburne.
The weary day rins down and dies,The weary night wears through:And never an hour is fair wi’ flower,And never a flower wi’ dew.
I would the day were night for me,I would the night were day:For then would I stand in my ain fair land,As now in dreams I may.
O lordly flow the Loire and Seine,And loud the dark Durance:But bonnier shine the braes of TyneThan a’ the fields of France;And the waves of Till that speak sae stillGleam goodlier where they glance.
O weel were they that fell fightingOn dark Drumossie’s day:They keep their hame ayont the faemAnd we die far away.
O sound they sleep, and saft, and deep,But night and day wake we;And ever between the sea-banks greenSounds loud the sundering sea.
And ill we sleep, sae sair we weep,But sweet and fast sleep they;And the mool that haps them roun’ and laps themIs e’en their country’s clay;But the land we tread that are not deadIs strange as night by day.
Strange as night in a strange man’s sight,Though fair as dawn it be:For what is here that a stranger’s cheerShould yet wax blithe to see?
The hills stand steep, the dells lie deep,The fields are green and gold:The hill-streams sing, and the hill-sides ring,As ours at home of old.
But hills and flowers are nane of ours,And ours are over sea:And the kind strange land whereon we stand,It wotsna what were weOr ever we came, wi’ scathe and shame,To try what end might be.
Scathe, and shame, and a waefu’ name,And a weary time and strange,Have they that seeing a weird for dreeingCan die, and cannot change.
Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn,Though sair be they to dree:But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide,Mair keen than wind and sea.
Ill may we thole the night’s watches,And ill the weary day:And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep,A waefu’ gift gie they;For the sangs they sing us, the sights they bring us,The morn blaws all away.
On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw,The burn rins blithe and fain:There’s nought wi’ me I wadna gieTo look thereon again.
On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide:There sounds nae hunting-hornThat rings sae sweet as the winds that beatRound banks where Tyne is born.
The Wansbeck sings with all her springs,The bents and braes give ear;But the wood that rings wi’ the sang she singsI may not see nor hear;For far and far thae blithe burns are,And strange is a’ thing near.
The light there lightens, the day there brightens,The loud wind there lives free:Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by meThat I wad hear or see.
But O gin I were there again,Afar ayont the faem,Cauld and dead in the sweet, saft bedThat haps my sires at hame!
We’ll see nae mair the sea-banks fair,And the sweet grey gleaming sky,And the lordly strand of Northumberland,And the goodly towers thereby;And none shall know but the winds that blowThe graves wherein we lie.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
New Year, be good to England. Bid her nameShine sunlike as of old on all the sea:Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free:Bind fast her home-born foes with links of shameMore strong than iron and more keen than flame:Seal up their lips for shame’s sake: so shall sheWho was the light that lightened freedom be,For all false tongues, in all men’s eyes the same.O last-born child of Time, earth’s eldest lord,God undiscrowned of godhead, who for manBegets all good and evil things that live,Do thou, his new-begotten son, imploredOf hearts that hope and fear not, make thy spanBright with such light as history bids thee give.Algernon Charles Swinburne.
New Year, be good to England. Bid her nameShine sunlike as of old on all the sea:Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free:Bind fast her home-born foes with links of shameMore strong than iron and more keen than flame:Seal up their lips for shame’s sake: so shall sheWho was the light that lightened freedom be,For all false tongues, in all men’s eyes the same.O last-born child of Time, earth’s eldest lord,God undiscrowned of godhead, who for manBegets all good and evil things that live,Do thou, his new-begotten son, imploredOf hearts that hope and fear not, make thy spanBright with such light as history bids thee give.Algernon Charles Swinburne.
New Year, be good to England. Bid her nameShine sunlike as of old on all the sea:Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free:Bind fast her home-born foes with links of shameMore strong than iron and more keen than flame:Seal up their lips for shame’s sake: so shall sheWho was the light that lightened freedom be,For all false tongues, in all men’s eyes the same.
O last-born child of Time, earth’s eldest lord,God undiscrowned of godhead, who for manBegets all good and evil things that live,Do thou, his new-begotten son, imploredOf hearts that hope and fear not, make thy spanBright with such light as history bids thee give.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Truth, winged and enkindled with raptureAnd sense of the radiance of yore,Fulfilled you with power to recaptureWhat never might singer before—The life, the delight, and the sorrowOf troublous and chivalrous yearsThat knew not of night or of morrow,Of hopes or of fears.But wider the wing and the visionThat quicken the spirit have spreadSince memory beheld with derisionMan’s hope to be more than his dead.From the mists and the snows and the thundersYour spirit has brought for us forthLight, music, and joy in the wondersAnd charms of the North.The wars and the woes and the gloriesThat quicken and lighten and rainFrom the clouds of its chronicled stories,The passion, the pride, and the pain,Where echoes were mute and the tokenWas lost of the spells that they spake,Rise bright at your bidding, unbrokenOf ages that break.For you, and for none of us other,Time is not: the dead that must liveHold commune with you as a brotherBy grace of the life that you give.The heart that was in them is in you,Their soul in your spirit endures:The strength of their song is the sinewOf this that is yours.Hence is it that life, everlastingAs light and as music, abidesIn the sound of the surge of it, castingSound back to the surge of the tides,Till sons of the sons of the NorsemenWatch, hurtling to windward and lea,Round England, unbacked of her horsemen,The steeds of the sea.Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Truth, winged and enkindled with raptureAnd sense of the radiance of yore,Fulfilled you with power to recaptureWhat never might singer before—The life, the delight, and the sorrowOf troublous and chivalrous yearsThat knew not of night or of morrow,Of hopes or of fears.But wider the wing and the visionThat quicken the spirit have spreadSince memory beheld with derisionMan’s hope to be more than his dead.From the mists and the snows and the thundersYour spirit has brought for us forthLight, music, and joy in the wondersAnd charms of the North.The wars and the woes and the gloriesThat quicken and lighten and rainFrom the clouds of its chronicled stories,The passion, the pride, and the pain,Where echoes were mute and the tokenWas lost of the spells that they spake,Rise bright at your bidding, unbrokenOf ages that break.For you, and for none of us other,Time is not: the dead that must liveHold commune with you as a brotherBy grace of the life that you give.The heart that was in them is in you,Their soul in your spirit endures:The strength of their song is the sinewOf this that is yours.Hence is it that life, everlastingAs light and as music, abidesIn the sound of the surge of it, castingSound back to the surge of the tides,Till sons of the sons of the NorsemenWatch, hurtling to windward and lea,Round England, unbacked of her horsemen,The steeds of the sea.Algernon Charles Swinburne.
Truth, winged and enkindled with raptureAnd sense of the radiance of yore,Fulfilled you with power to recaptureWhat never might singer before—The life, the delight, and the sorrowOf troublous and chivalrous yearsThat knew not of night or of morrow,Of hopes or of fears.
But wider the wing and the visionThat quicken the spirit have spreadSince memory beheld with derisionMan’s hope to be more than his dead.From the mists and the snows and the thundersYour spirit has brought for us forthLight, music, and joy in the wondersAnd charms of the North.
The wars and the woes and the gloriesThat quicken and lighten and rainFrom the clouds of its chronicled stories,The passion, the pride, and the pain,Where echoes were mute and the tokenWas lost of the spells that they spake,Rise bright at your bidding, unbrokenOf ages that break.
For you, and for none of us other,Time is not: the dead that must liveHold commune with you as a brotherBy grace of the life that you give.The heart that was in them is in you,Their soul in your spirit endures:The strength of their song is the sinewOf this that is yours.
Hence is it that life, everlastingAs light and as music, abidesIn the sound of the surge of it, castingSound back to the surge of the tides,Till sons of the sons of the NorsemenWatch, hurtling to windward and lea,Round England, unbacked of her horsemen,The steeds of the sea.
Algernon Charles Swinburne.