lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

LYRICAL POETRYof the old sting is the Prelude, where Swinburnerecants his early excesses and catches fire from theirrecollection:Play then and sing ; we too have played,We likewise, in that subtle shade.We too have twisted through our hairSuch tendrils as the wild Loves wear,And heard what mirth the Maenads made,Till the wind blew our garlands bareAnd left their roses disarrayed,And smote the summer with strange air,And disengirdled and discrownedThe limbs and locks that vine-wreaths bound,and I cannot but think that to the end something ofthe old "salt and savour" comes into Swinburne'spoetry when the theme is the old one of love—as insome of the songs in the second Poems and Ballads(1878), the already mentioned At a Month's End withthe fierce leap of the intermingled trochees andiambs:As a star feels the sun and falters,Touched to death by diviner eyes—As on the old gods' untended altarsThe old fire of withered worship dies,So once with fiery breath and flyingYour winged heart touched mine and went,And the swift spirits kissed, and sighing,Sundered and smiled and were content,and "I saw my soul at rest upon a day," "Could'stthou not watch with me one hour ? " " I hid my heart ina nest of roses," "Now the days are all gone over," andLove laid his sleepless headOn a "horny rosy bed,114