A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Algernon Charles Swinburne
The burden of fair women. Vain delight,
Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,
I hid my heart in a nest of roses,
ALL the bells of heaven may ring,
Heart's ease or pansy, pleasure or thought,
Three times thrice hath winter's rough white wing
Somno mollior unda
Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon
SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,
A baby shines as bright
Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother,
Blessed was she that bare,
I -- In Church
Reconciled by death's mild hand, that giving
Death and birth should dwell not near together:
Take, since you bade it should bear,
Between the wave-ridge and the strand
A Baby's feet, like sea-shells pink,
OUTSIDE the garden
I AM that which began;
Beneath the shadow of dawn's aërial cope,
In the grey beginning of years, in the twilight of things that began,
Vicisti, Galilæe
Back to the flower-town, side by side,
At the time when the stars are grey,
WAS it light that spake from the darkness,
From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine,
'Not a child: I call myself a boy,'
He held no dream worth waking; so he said,
Inside this northern summer's fold
SORROW, on wing through the world for ever,
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
The trumpets of the four winds of the world
Here, where the world is quiet;
Is it so, that the sword is broken,
eipate toi basilei, xamai pese daidalos aula.
From the depths of the green garden-closes
Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken
It is an hour before the hour of dawn.
Send but a song oversea for us,