ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

Where dead ages hide under The live roots of the tree, In my darkness the thunder

Makes utterance of me ;

In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of the sea.

That noise is of Time,

As his feathers are spread And his feet set to climb

Through the boughs overhead,

And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent with his tread.

The storm-winds of ages

Blow through me and cease, The war-wind that rages,

The spring-wind of peace,

Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase.

All sounds of all changes, All shadows and lights On the world's mountain-ranges

And stream-riven heights,

Whose tongue is the wind's tongue and language of storm- clouds on earth-shaking nights ;

All forms of all faces,

All works of all hands In unsearchable places

Of time-stricken lands,

All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.

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