Algernon Charles Swinburne Quotes & Sayings

Love laid his sleepless head
On a thorny rose bed:
And his eyes with tears were red,
And pale his lips as the dead. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

You have a face that suits a woman
For her soul's screen
The sort of beauty that's called human
In hell, Faustine. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Ask nothing more of me sweet;
All I can give you I give;
Heart of my heart were it more,
More would be laid at your feet.. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For words divide and rend But silence is most noble till the end. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

O all fair lovers about the world,
There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me.
My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirled
Round and round in a gulf of the sea;
And still, through the sound and the straining stream,
Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream,
The bright fine lips so cruelly curled,
And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Thou has conquered, O pale Galilean. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

To wipe off the froth of falsehood from the foaming lips of inebriated virtue, when fresh from the sexless orgies of morality and reeling from the delirious riot of religion, may doubtless be a charitable office. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Behold, when thy face is made bare, he that loved thee shall hate;
Thy face shall be no more fair at the fall of thy fate
For thy life shall fall as a leaf and be shed as the rain;
And the veil of thine head shall be grief, and the crown shall be pain. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

When the hounds of Spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

In fierce March weather White waves break tether, And whirled together At either hand, Like weeds uplifted, The tree-trunks rifted In spars are drifted, Like foam or sand. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron, Shall a nation be moulded at last. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Wherever there is a grain of loyalty there is a glimpse of freedom. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

In hawthorn-time the heart grows light. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel
Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour;
The heavy white limbs, and the cruel
Red mouth like a venomous flower;
When these have gone by with their glories,
What shall rest of thee then, what remain,
O mystic and somber Delores,
Our Lady of Pain? — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Our way is where God knows
And Love knows where:
We are in Love's hand to-day. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Is not Precedent indeed a King of men? A Word from the Psalmist. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

You came, and the sun came after,
And the green grew golden above;
And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter,
And the meadowsweet shook with love — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

A man is not an orange. You can't eat the fruit and throw the peel away. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran . — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Faith speaks when hope is disassembled; faith lives when hope dies dead. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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 — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,
And the loves that complete and control
All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows
That wear out the soul. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Ah, had I not taken my life up and given
All that life gives and the years let go,
The wind and honey, the balm and leaven,
The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low?
Come life, come death, not a word be said;
Should I lose you living, and vex you dead?
I never shall tell you on earth; and in heaven,
If I cry to you then, will you hear or know? — Algernon Charles Swinburne

There grows No herb of help to heal a coward heart. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The sun is all about the world we see, the breath and strength of every spring. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

In a land of sand and ruin and gold
There shone one woman, and none but she — Algernon Charles Swinburne

To say of shame - what is it? Of virtue - we can miss it; Of sin-we can kiss it, And it's no longer sin. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Love, till dawn sunder night from day with fire Dividing my delight and my desire ... — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Love is more cruel than lust. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I dore 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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The delight that consumes the desire, The desire that outruns the delight. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Today will die tomorrow. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

While three men hold together, the kingdoms are less by three. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Change lays her hand not upon the truth. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

On the mountains of memory by the world's wellsprings, in all man's eyes, where the light of life of him is on all past things, death only dies. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I remember the way we parted, The day and the way we met; You hoped we were both broken-hearted And knew we should both forget. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Hope knows not if fear speaks truth, nor fear whether hope be blind as she. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

At the door of life, by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,
Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune
That death smote silent when he smote again. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Lying asleep between the strokes of night
I saw my love lean over my sad bed,
Pale as the duskiest lily's leaf or head,
Smooth-skinned and dark, with bare throat made to bite,
Too wan for blushing and too warm for white,
But perfect-coloured without white or red.
And her lips opened amorously, and said
I wist not what, saving one word
Delight.
And all her face was honey to my mouth,
And all her body pasture to my eyes;
The long lithe arms and hotter hands than fire,
The quivering flanks, hair smelling of the south,
The bright light feet, the splendid supple thighs
And glittering eyelids of my soul's desire. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Save his own soul he hath no star. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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 pleasure or grey grief; If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain When Time and God give judgment. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

We, drinking love at the furthest springs,
Covered with love as a covering tree,
We had grown as gods, as the gods above,
Filled from the heart to the lips with love,
Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings,
O love, my love, had you loved but me! — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For no man under the sky lives twice — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For the worst is this after all; if they knew me, not a soul upon earth would pity me. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

But now, you are twain, you are cloven apart
Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I wish we were dead together to-day,
Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight,
Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay,
Out of the world's way, out of the light,
Out of the ages of worldly weather, Forgotten of all men altogether,
As the world's first dead, taken wholly away,
Made one with death, filled full of the night. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The loves and hours of the life of a man,
They are swift and sad, being born of the sea. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The half-brained creature to whom books are other than living things may see with the eyes of a bat and draw with the fingers of a mole his dullard's distinction between books and life: those who live the fuller life of a higher animal than he know that books are to poets as much part of that life as pictures are to painters or as music is to musicians, dead matter though they may be to the spiritually still-born children of dirt and dullness who find it possible and natural to live while dead in heart and brain. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Though one were fair as roses His beauty clouds and closes. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

There is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men, the sea.
I will go down to her, I and none other,
Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me.
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast;
O fair white mother, in days long passed
Born without sister, born without brother,
Set free my soul as thy soul is free. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Who knows but on their sleep may rise Such light as never heaven let through To lighten earth from Paradise? — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

For till the thunder and trumpet be,
Soul may divide from body, but not we
One from another — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal; Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

O brother, the gods were good to you.
Sleep, and be glad while the world
endures.
Be well content as the years wear
through;
Give thanks for life, and the loves and
lures;
Give thanks for life, O brother, and
death,
For the sweet last sound of her feet, her
breath,
For gifts she gave you, gracious and
few,Tears and kisses, that lady of yours. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

In the world of dreams, I have chosen my part. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things of life. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt;
We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without? — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of mire and rime,
Before thy pale and fitful face
The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace
Through skies the morning scarce may climb.
Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,
But lit with hopes that light the year's. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Where might is, the right is:
Long purses make strong swords.
Let weakness learn meekness:
God save the House of Lords! — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

God's own hand Holds fast all issues of our deeds: with him The end of all our ends is, but with us Our ends are, just or unjust: though our works Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this At least is ours, to make them righteous. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Fate is a sea without a shore, and the soul is a rock that abides. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
— Algernon Charles Swinburne

His speech is a burning fire. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

There was a poor poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff, But the public, though dull, Had not such a skull As belonged to believers in Clough. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Body and spirit are twins: God only knows which is which. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The more congenial page of some tenth-rate poeticule worn out with failure after failure and now squat in his hole like the tailless fox, he is curled up to snarl and whimper beneath the inaccessible vine of song. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

The sweetest flowers in all the world- A baby's hands. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

We are not sure of sorrow; and joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Fear that makes faith may break faith. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Heart's ease of pansy, pleasure or thought, Which would the picture give us of these? Surely the heart that conceived it sought Heart's ease. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Time stoops to no man's lure. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free; love me no more, but love my love of thee. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

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. — Algernon Charles Swinburne

All the world is bitter as a tear — Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver Sorrow ... — Algernon Charles Swinburne