Autumn And Winter , Born in London in 1837, Algernon Swinburne became one of the most well-known poets of the Victorian age, producing verse that often shocked and shook the morals of the conservative elite of the city. The oldest of 6 children in a wealthy family, he was sent to Eton to begin his studies where he discovered his love of poetry and began to write.
Autumn And Winter by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Between two dates of death, while men were fain
Yet of the living light that all too soon
Three months bade wane.Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,
Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune
Who loved the lord of music: then the strain
Whence earth was kindled like as heaven in June
Three months bade wane.A herald soul before its master’s flying
Touched by some few moons first the darkling goal
A herald soul;Shades of dead lords of music, who control
Men living by the might of men undying,
With strength of strains that make delight of dole.The deep dense dust on death’s dim threshold lying
Trembled with sense of kindling sound that stole
Through darkness, and the night gave ear, descrying
They seem gone hence together, from the shore
Whence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier passed
One went before;One whose whole heart of love, being set of yore
On that high joy which music lends us, cast
Light round him forth of music’s radiant store.
Then went, while earth on winter glared aghast,
The mortal god he worshipped, through the door
Wherethrough so late, his lover to the last,
One went before.
A star had set an hour before the sun
Sank from the skies wherethrough his heart’s pulse yet
Thrills audibly: but few took heed, or none,
A star had set.
All heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,
The deep dirge of the sunset: how should one
Soft star be missed in all the concourse met?
But, O sweet single heart whose work is done,
Whose songs are silent, how should I forget
That ere the sunset’s fiery goal was won
A star had set?
