ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

The most high Muses that fulfil all ages Weep, and our God's heart yearns.

For, sparing of his sacred strength, not often Among us darkling here the lord of light Makes manifest his music and his might

In hearts that open and in lips that soften

With the soft flame and heat of songs that shine. Thy lips indeed he touch'd with bitter wine,

And nourish'd them indeed with bitter bread;

Yet surely from his hand thy soul's food came, The iire that scarr'd thy spirit at his flame

Was lighted, and thine hungering heart he fed Who feeds our hearts with fame.

Therefore he too now at thy soul's sunsetting,

God of all suns and songs, he too bends down To mix his laurel with thy cypress crown,

And save thy dust from blame and from forgetting. Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art, Compassionate, with sad and sacred heart,

Mourns thee of many his children the last dead,

And hallows with strange tears and alien sighs Thine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes,

And over thine irrevocable head

Sheds light from the under skies.

And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean,

And stains with tears her changing bosom chill ; That obscure Venus of the hollow hill,

That thing transform'd which was the Cytherean, With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine Long since, and face no more call'd Erycine

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