Quotes from Algernon Charles Swinburne

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows, and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

Mi?o??, sen i ?mier? nadchodz? poma?u Schwy? mnie za w?osy i mocno poca?uj.

Time and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof, Draining a little life from the barren breasts of love.

For till thunder in the trumoet be, Soul may divide from body but not we One from another

In a land of sand and ruin and gold There shone one woman, and none but she

By Heaven, had I the teeth of Caucasus Red-hot from Promethean agonies, And tusks more lucid than the lunar snows, On those jagged lawns of Asia, cavernous With many a dragon banquet-eyes like those Minerva made of flint to shatter Jove-- I'd hurl their hate upon thee, and myself Die in a red parabola of Fate! --Ernest Wheldrake, The Monomaniac's Tragedy

Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

From too much love of living From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night.

I am tired of tears and laughter, And men that laugh and weep Of what may come hereafter For men that sow to reap: I am weary of days and hours, Blown buds of barren flowers, Desires and dreams and powers And everything but sleep.

And the best and the worst of this is That neither is most to blame, If you have forgotten my kisses And I have forgotten your name.

If you were Queen of pleasure And I were King of pain We'd hunt down Love together, Pluck out his flying-feather, And teach his feet a measure, And find his mouth a rein; If you were Queen of pleasure And I were King of pain.

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time, with a gift of tears; Grief, with a glass that ran; Pleasure, with pain for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance, fallen from heaven, And madness risen from hell; Strength without hands to smite; Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And Life, the shadow of death.

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

And a bird overhead sang Follow, And a bird to the right sang Here; And the arch of the leaves was hollow, And the meaning of May was clear.

I dore not always touch her, lest the kiss Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss, Brief, bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin; Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.

At the door of life, by the gate of breath, There are worse things waiting for men than death.

Fierce midnights and famishing morrows, And the loves that complete and control All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows That wear out the soul.

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;/ We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death

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..

That no life lives forever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart.

Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges; Thou art fed with perpetual breath, and alive after infinite changes, And fresh from the kisses of death, Of langours rekindled and rallied, Of barren delights and unclean, Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallid And poisonous queen.

Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal; Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night.

I dare not always touch her, lest the kiss leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss, brief bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin; Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.