Algernon Swinburne citations

Page 3

“A blatant Bassarid of Boston, a rampant Maenad of Massachusetts.”

“Rhyme is the native condition of lyric verse in English; a rhymeless lyric is a maimed thing.”

“Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?”

“To wipe off the froth of falsehood from the foaming lips of inebriated virtue, when fresh from the sexless orgies of morality and reeling from the delirious riot of religion, may doubtless be a charitable office.”

“Forget that I remember
And dream that I forget.”

“His speech is a burning fire.”

“Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron,
Shall a nation be moulded at last.”

“Marvellous mercies and infinite love.”

“Our way is where God knows
And Love knows where:
We are in Love's hand to-day.”

“Like rose-hued sea-flowers toward the heat,
They stretch and spread and wink
Their ten soft buds that part and meet.”

“Did I bid thee
Mock, and forget me for thy friend — I say not,
King? Is thy heart so light and lean a thing,
So loose in faith and faint in love? I bade thee
Stand to me, help me, hold my hand in thine
And give my heart back answer. This it is,
Old friend and fool, that gnaws my life in twain —
The worm that writhes and feeds about my heart —
The devil and God are crying in either ear
One murderous word for ever, night and day,
Dark day and deadly night and deadly day,
Can she love thee who slewest her father? I
Love her.”

“Change lays not her hand upon truth.”

“Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die.”

“Ah that such sweet things should be fleet,
Such fleet things sweet!”

“It is long since Mr. Carlyle expressed his opinion that if any poet or other literary creature could really be "killed off by one critique" or many, the sooner he was so despatched the better; a sentiment in which I for one humbly but heartily concur.”

“Time found our tired love sleeping,
And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
Till there's not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
A single pulse of pain.”

“When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.”

“They do not ill, being lords of ours, to slay
Me; nay, they could not spare: but thee to slay,
To spill thy strong young life for truth to me,
In all men's eyes would mark them monstrous: thou
Must live, and serve my slayers, and serving them
Sustain my memory by the proof — if God
Shall give thee grace to prove it — that thy name,
Thy father's name and mine, in true men's ears
Rings truth, and means not treason.”

“Fear that makes faith may break faith; and a fool Is but in folly stable.”

“The sweetest flowers in all the world—
A baby's hands.”

“Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire?”

“And lo, between the sundawn and the sun
His day's work and his night's work are undone:
And lo, between the nightfall and the light,
He is not, and none knoweth of such an one.”

“Gone deeper than all plummets sound. {cf. Shak.: I'll seek him deeper than e'er plummet sounded… (The Tempest)}”

“From too much love of living”

“Though one were strong as seven”

“All Egypt aches in the sun's sight;”