Algernon Charles Swinburne Quotes

A baby's feet, like sea-shells pink Might tempt, should heaven see meet,
An angel's lips to kiss, we think, A baby's feet.

So Tristram looked on Iseult face to face
and knew not, and she knew not. The last time — The last that should be told in any rhyme
Heard anywhere on mouths of singing men
That ever should sing praise of them again;
The last hour of their hurtless hearts at rest,
The last that peace should touch them, breast to breast,
The last that sorrow far from them should sit,
This last was with them, and they knew not it.

A Match

If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pasture or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.

If I were what the words are,
And love were like the tune,
With double sound and single
Delight our lips would mingle,
With kisses glad as birds are
That get sweet rain at noon;
If I were what the words are,
And love were like the tune.

If you were life, my darling,
And I your love were death,
We'd shine and snow together
Ere March made sweet the weather
With daffodil and starling
And hours of fruitful breath;
If you were life, my darling,
And I your love were death.

If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy,
We'd play for lives and seasons
With loving looks and treasons
And tears of night and morrow
And laughs of maid and boy;
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy.

If you were April's lady,
And I were lord in May,
We'd throw with leaves for hours
And draw for days with flowers,
Till day like night were shady
And night were bright like day;
If you were April's lady,
And I were lord in May.

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.

"She might come in to bride-bed: and he laughed,
As one that wist not well of wise love's craft,
And bade all bridal things be as she would.
Yet of his gentleness he gat not good;
For clothed and covered with the nuptial dark
Soft like a bride came Brangwain to King Mark,
And to the queen came Tristram; and the night
Fled, and ere danger of detective light
From the king sleeping Brangwain slid away,
And where had lain her handmaid Iseult lay.
And the king waking saw beside his head
That face yet passion-coloured, amorous red
From lips not his, and all that strange hair shed
Across the tissued pillows, fold on fold,
Innumerable, incomparable, all gold,
To fire men's eyes with wonder, and with love
Men's hearts; so shone its flowering crown above
The brows enwound with that imperial wreath,
And framed with fragrant radiance round the face beneath.
And the king marvelled, seeing with sudden start
Her very glory, and said out of his heart;
"What have I done of good for God to bless
That all this he should give me, tress on tress,
All this great wealth and wondrous? Was it this
That in mine arms I had all night to kiss,
And mix with me this beauty? this that seems
More fair than heaven doth in some tired saint's dreams,
Being part of that same heaven? yea, more, for he,
Though loved of God so, yet but seems to see,
But to me sinful such great grace is given
That in mine hands I hold this part of heaven,
Not to mine eyes lent merely. Doth God make
Such things so godlike for man's mortal sake?
Have I not sinned, that in this fleshly life
Have made of her a mere man's very wife?

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.

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.

Hide me inside you, where the sweetest things are hidden, between the roots of roses and spices

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

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.

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

What sentence shall be given on mine? Of man, As ill or well God means me, well or ill Shall judgment pass upon me : but of God, If God himself be righteous or be God, Who being unrighteous were but god of hell, The sentence given shall judge me just...

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.

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.

She knows not loves that kissed her

She knows not where.

Art thou the ghost, my sister,

White sister there,

Am I the ghost, who knows?

My hand, a fallen rose,

Lies snow-white on white snows, and

takes no care.

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