Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburnewas an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. A controversial figure at the time, Swinburne was a sado-masochist and alcoholic and was obsessed with the Middle Ages and lesbianism...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth5 April 1837
life men sea
The loves and hours of the life of a man, They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.
love life butterfly
Love, as is told by the seers of old, Comes as a butterfly tipped with gold, Flutters and flies in sunlit skies, Weaving round hearts that were one time cold.
life heart tears
O Love, O great god Love, what have I done, That thou shouldst hunger so after my death? My heart is harmless as my life's first day: Seek out some false fair woman, and plague her Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed.
life eye rose
Love laid his sleepless head On a thorny rose bed: And his eyes with tears were red, And pale his lips as the dead.
life sweet love-you
I that have love and no more Give you but love of you, sweet; He that hath more, let him give; He that hath wings, let him soar; Mine is the heart at your feet Here, that must love you to live.
kissing names blame
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.
lying self strange
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead.
marriage sorrow theism
When I hear that a friend has fallen into matrimony, I feel the same sorrow as if I had heard of his lapsing into theism.
despair twins devotion
Despair the twin-born of devotion.
art queens kissing
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 pallidAnd poisonous queen.
blow garden white
White rose in red rose-garden Is not so white; Snowdrops, that plead for pardon And pine for fright Because the hard East blows Over their maiden vows, Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.
wings goal heaven
A little soul scarce fledged for earth Takes wing with heaven again for goal, Even while we hailed as fresh from birth A little soul.
running heart light
No blast of air or fire of sun Puts out the light whereby we run With girdled loins our lamplit race, And each from each takes heart of grace And spirit till his turn be done.
lying laughing rose
Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her: Love lies bleeding.