Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909). The Death of Meleager. Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. 1922. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse

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Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

The Death of Meleager

By Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)


MELEAGER LET your hands meet
Round the weight of my head;
Lift ye my feet
As the feet of the dead;
For the flesh of my body is molten, the limbs of it molten as lead.	5

CHORUS O thy luminous face,
Thine imperious eyes!
O the grief, O the grace,
As of day when it dies!
Who is this bending over thee, lord, with tears and suppression of sighs?	10

MELEAGER Is a bride so fair?
Is a maid so meek?
With unchapleted hair,
With unfilleted cheek,
Atalanta, the pure among women, whose name is as blessing to speak.	15

ATALANTA I would that with feet
Unsandall’d, unshod,
Overbold, overfleet,
I had swum not nor trod
From Arcadia to Calydon northward, a blast of the envy of God.	20

MELEAGER Unto each man his fate;
Unto each as he saith
In whose fingers the weight
Of the world is as breath;
Yet I would that in clamour of battle mine hands had laid hold upon death.	25

CHORUS Not with cleaving of shields
And their clash in thine ear,
When the lord of fought fields
Breaketh spearshaft from spear,
Thou art broken, our lord, thou art broken, with travail and labour and fear.	30

MELEAGER Would God he had found me
Beneath fresh boughs!
Would God he had bound me
Unawares in mine house,
With light in mine eyes, and songs in my lips, and a crown on my brows!	35

CHORUS Whence art thou sent from us?
Whither thy goal?
How art thou rent from us,
Thou that wert whole,
As with severing of eyelids and eyes, as with sundering of body and soul!	40

MELEAGER My heart is within me
As an ash in the fire;
Whosoever hath seen me,
Without lute, without lyre,
Shall sing of me grievous things, even things that were ill to desire.	45

CHORUS Who shall raise thee
From the house of the dead?
Or what man praise thee
That thy praise may be said?
Alas thy beauty! alas thy body! alas thine head!	50

MELEAGER But thou, O mother,
The dreamer of dreams,
Wilt thou bring forth another
To feel the sun’s beams
When I move among shadows a shadow, and wail by impassable streams?	55

ŒNEUS What thing wilt thou leave me
Now this thing is done?
A man wilt thou give me,
A son for my son,
For the light of mine eyes, the desire of my life, the desirable one?	60

CHORUS Thou wert glad above others,
Yea, fair beyond word;
Thou wert glad among mothers;
For each man that heard
Of thee, praise there was added unto thee, as wings to the feet of a bird.	65

ŒNEUS Who shall give back
Thy face of old years
With travail made black,
Grown grey among fears,
Mother of sorrow, mother of cursing, mother of tears?	70

MELEAGER Though thou art as fire
Fed with fuel in vain,
My delight, my desire,
Is more chaste than the rain,
More pure than the dewfall, more holy than stars are that live without stain.	75

ATALANTA I would that as water
My life’s blood had thawn,
Or as winter’s wan daughter
Leaves lowland and lawn
Spring-stricken, or ever mine eyes had beheld thee made dark in thy dawn.	80

CHORUS When thou dravest the men
Of the chosen of Thrace,
None turn’d him again
Nor endured he thy face
Clothed round with the blush of the battle, with light from a terrible place.	85

ŒNEUS Thou shouldst die as he dies
For whom none sheddeth tears;
Filling thine eyes
And fulfilling thine ears
With the brilliance of battle, the bloom and the beauty, the splendour of spears.	90

CHORUS In the ears of the world
It is sung, it is told,
And the light thereof hurl’d
And the noise thereof roll’d
From the Acroceraunian snow to the ford of the fleece of gold.	95

MELEAGER Would God ye could carry me
Forth of all these;
Heap sand and bury me
By the Chersonese,
Where the thundering Bosphorus answers the thunder of Pontic seas.	100

ŒNEUS Dost thou mock at our praise
And the singing begun,
And the men of strange days
Praising my son
In the folds of the hills of home, high places of Calydon?	105

MELEAGER For the dead man no home is;
Ah, better to be
What the flower of the foam is
In fields of the sea,
That the sea-waves might be as my raiment, the gulf-stream a garment for me!	110

CHORUS Who shall seek thee and bring
And restore thee thy day,
When the dove dipt her wing
And the oars won their way
Where the narrowing Symplegades whiten’d the straits of Propontis with spray?	115

MELEAGER Will ye crown me my tomb
Or exalt me my name,
Now my spirits consume,
Now my flesh is a flame?
Let the sea slake it once, and men speak of me sleeping to praise me or shame.	120

CHORUS Turn back now, turn thee,
As who turns him to wake;
Though the life in thee burn thee,
Couldst thou bathe it and slake
Where the sea-ridge of Helle hangs heavier, and east upon west waters break?	125

MELEAGER Would the winds blow me back,
Or the waves hurl me home?
Ah, to touch in the track
Where the pine learnt to roam
Cold girdles and crowns of the sea-gods, cool blossoms of water and foam!	130

CHORUS The gods may release
That they made fast:
Thy soul shall have ease
In thy limbs at the last;
But what shall they give thee for life, sweet life that is overpast?	135

MELEAGER Not the life of men’s veins,
Not of flesh that conceives;
But the grace that remains,
The fair beauty that cleaves
To the life of the rains in the grasses, the life of the dews on the leaves.	140

CHORUS Thou wert helmsman and chief;
Wilt thou turn in an hour,
Thy limbs to the leaf,
Thy face to the flower,
Thy blood to the water, thy soul to the gods who divide and devour?	145

MELEAGER The years are hungry,
They wail all their days;
The gods wax angry
And weary of praise;
And who shall bridle their lips? and who shall straiten their ways?	150

CHORUS The gods guard over us
With sword and with rod;
Weaving shadow to cover us,
Heaping the sod,
That law may fulfil herself wholly, to darken man’s face before God.	155

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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