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 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.
blow puff development
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.
frogs tadpoles poet
The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog.
hands issues deeds
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.
mother sweet kissing
I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and no other, Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me.