free-verse156 lines

On the Downs

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

A faint sea without wind or sun;

A sky like flameless vapour dun;

A valley like an unsealed grave

That no man cares to weep upon,

Bare, without boon to crave,

Or flower to save.

And on the lip's edge of the down,

Here where the bent-grass burns to brown

In the dry sea-wind, and the heath

Crawls to the cliff-side and looks down,

I watch, and hear beneath

The low tide breathe.

Along the long lines of the cliff,

Down the flat sea-line without skiff

Or sail or back-blown fume for mark,

Through wind-worn heads of heath and stiff

Stems blossomless and stark

With dry sprays dark,

I send mine eyes out as for news

Of comfort that all these refuse,

Tidings of light or living air

From windward where the low clouds muse

And the sea blind and bare

Seems full of care.

So is it now as it was then,

And as men have been such are men.

There as I stood I seem to stand,

Here sitting chambered, and again

Feel spread on either hand

Sky, sea, and land.

As a queen taken and stripped and bound

Sat earth, discoloured and discrowned;

As a king's palace empty and dead

The sky was, without light or sound;

And on the summer's head

Were ashes shed.

Scarce wind enough was on the sea,

Scarce hope enough there moved in me,

To sow with live blown flowers of white

The green plain's sad serenity,

Or with stray thoughts of light

Touch my soul's sight.

By footless ways and sterile went

My thought unsatisfied, and bent

With blank unspeculative eyes

On the untracked sands of discontent

Where, watched of helpless skies,

Life hopeless lies.

East and west went my soul to find

Light, and the world was bare and blind

And the soil herbless where she trod

And saw men laughing scourge mankind,

Unsmitten by the rod

Of any God.

Out of time's blind old eyes were shed

Tears that were mortal, and left dead

The heart and spirit of the years,

And on mans fallen and helmless head

Time's disanointing tears

Fell cold as fears.

Hope flowering had but strength to bear

The fruitless fruitage of despair;

Grief trod the grapes of joy for wine,

Whereof love drinking unaware

Died as one undivine

And made no sign.

And soul and body dwelt apart;

And weary wisdom without heart

Stared on the dead round heaven and sighed,

'Is death too hollow as thou art,

Or as man's living pride?'

And saying so died.

And my soul heard the songs and groans

That are about and under thrones,

And felt through all time's murmur thrill

Fate's old imperious semitones

That made of good and ill

One same tune still.

Then 'Where is God? and where is aid?

Or what good end of these?' she said;

'Is there no God or end at all,

Nor reason with unreason weighed,

Nor force to disenthral

Weak feet that fall?

'No light to lighten and no rod

To chasten men? Is there no God?'

So girt with anguish, iron-zoned,

Went my soul weeping as she trod

Between the men enthroned

And men that groaned.

O fool, that for brute cries of wrong

Heard not the grey glad mother's song

Ring response from the hills and waves,

But heard harsh noises all day long

Of spirits that were slaves

And dwelt in graves.

The wise word of the secret earth

Who knows what life and death are worth,

And how no help and no control

Can speed or stay things come to birth,

Nor all worlds' wheels that roll

Crush one born soul.

With all her tongues of life and death,

With all her bloom and blood and breath,

From all years dead and all things done,

In the ear of man the mother saith,

'There is no God, O son,

If thou be none.'

So my soul sick with watching heard

That day the wonder of that word,

And as one springs out of a dream

Sprang, and the stagnant wells were stirred

Whence flows through gloom and gleam

Thought's soundless stream.

Out of pale cliff and sunburnt health,

Out of the low sea curled beneath

In the land's bending arm embayed,

Out of all lives that thought hears breathe

Life within life inlaid,

Was answer made.

A multitudinous monotone

Of dust and flower and seed and stone,

In the deep sea-rock's mid-sea sloth,

In the live water's trembling zone,

In all men love and loathe,

One God at growth.

One forceful nature uncreate

That feeds itself with death and fate,

Evil and good, and change and time,

That within all men lies at wait

Till the hour shall bid them climb

And live sublime.

For all things come by fate to flower

At their unconquerable hour,

And time brings truth, and truth makes free,

And freedom fills time's veins with power,

As, brooding on that sea,

My thought filled me.

And the sun smote the clouds and slew,

And from the sun the sea's breath blew,

And white waves laughed and turned and fled

The long green heaving sea-field through,

And on them overhead

The sky burnt red

Like a furled flag that wind sets free,

On the swift summer-coloured sea

Shook out the red lines of the light,

The live sun's standard, blown to lee

Across the live sea's white

And green delight.

And with divine triumphant awe

My spirit moved within me saw,

With burning passion of stretched eyes,

Clear as the light's own firstborn law,

In windless wastes of skies

Time's deep dawn rise.