Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1015

 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in-clime The hidden harvest of luxurious time,

Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech;

And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep;

And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each, Seeing as men sow men reap.

��O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,

That were athirst for sleep and no more life And no more love, for peace and no more strife !

Now the dim gods of death have in their keeping Spirit and body and all the springs of song, Is it well now where love can do no wrong,

Where btingless pleasure has no foam or fang

Behind the unopening closure of her lips? Is it not well wheie soul from body slips

And flesh from bone divides without a pang As dew from flower-bell drips ?

It is enough; the end and the beginning

Are one thing to thee, who art past the end. O hand unclasp'd of unbeholden friend,

For thec no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning, No triumph and no labour and no lust, Only dead yew-leaves and a little dust.

O quiet eyes wherein the light saith naught, Whereto the day is dumb, nor any night With obscure finger silences your sight,

Nor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought, Sleep, and have sleep for light.

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