BEFORE DAWN
by: Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1837-1909)
- WEET life,
if life were stronger,
- Earth clear of years that wrong her,
- Then two things might live longer,
- Two sweeter things than they;
- Delight, the rootless flower,
- And love, the bloomless bower;
- Delight that lives an hour,
- And love that lives a day.
-
- From evensong to daytime,
- When April melts in Maytime,
- Love lengthens out his playtime,
- Love lessens breath by breath,
- And kiss by kiss grows older
- On listless throat or shoulder
- Turned sideways now, turned colder
- Than life that dreams of death.
-
- This one thing once worth giving
- Life gave, and seemed worth living;
- Sin sweet beyond forgiving
- And brief beyond regret:
- To laugh and love together
- And weave with foam and feather
- And wind and words the tether
- Our memories play with yet.
-
- Ah, one thing worth beginning,
- One thread in life worth spinning,
- Ah sweet, one sin worth sinning,
- With all the whole soul's will;
- To lull you till one stilled you,
- To kiss you till one killed you,
- To feed you till one filled you,
- Sweet lips, if love could fill;
-
- To hunt sweet Love and lose him
- Between white arms and bosom,
- Between the bud and blossom,
- Between your throat and chin;
- To say of shame--what is it?
- Or virtue--we can miss it,
- Of sin--we can but kiss it,
- And it's no longer sin:
-
- To feel the strong soul, stricken
- Through fleshly pulses, quicken
- Beneath swift sighs that thicken,
- Soft hands and lips that smite;
- Lips that no love can tire,
- With hands that sting like fire,
- Weaving the web Desire
- To snare the bird Delight.
-
- But love so lightly plighted,
- Our love with torch unlighted,
- Paused near us unaffrighted,
- Who found and left him free;
- None, seeing us cloven in sunder,
- Will weep or laugh or wonder;
- Light love stands clear of thunder,
- And safe from winds at sea.
-
- As, when late larks give warning
- Of dying lights and dawning,
- Night murmurs to the morning,
- "Lie still, O love, lie still";
- And half her dark limbs cover
- The white limbs of her lover,
- With amorous plumes that hover
- And fervent lips that chill;
-
- As scornful day represses
- Night's void and vain caresses,
- And from her cloudier tresses
- Unwinds the gold of his,
- With limbs from limbs dividing
- And breath by breath subsiding;
- For love has no abiding,
- But dies before the kiss;
-
- So hath it been, so be it;
- For who shall live and flee it?
- But look that no man see it
- Or hear it unaware;
- Lest all who love and choose him
- See Love, and so refuse him
- For all who find him lose him,
- But all have found him fair.
"Before Dawn" is reprinted
from Poetica Erotica. Ed. T.R. Smith. New York: Crown
Publishers, 1921. |
MORE POEMS BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE |
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