A Dark Month

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Title: A Dark Month
From Swinburne's Collected Poetical Works Vol. V
Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
Release Date: June 7, 2006 [EBook #18524]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A DARK
MONTH ***
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A Dark Month
By
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of
Algernon Charles
Swinburne (Vol. V)
THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS
OF ALGERNON
CHARLES SWINBURNE

VOL. V
STUDIES IN SONG : A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS : SONNETS
ON
ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS : THE HEPTALOGIA :
ETC.
SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS
I. POEMS AND BALLADS (First Series).
II. SONGS BEFORE SUNRISE, and SONGS OF TWO NATIONS.
III. POEMS AND BALLADS (Second and Third Series), and
SONGS OF THE SPRING TIDES.
IV. TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE, THE TALE OF BALEN,
ATALANTA IN CALYDON, ERECHTHEUS.
V. STUDIES IN SONG, A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS,
SONNETS ON ENGLISH
DRAMATIC POETS, THE HEPTALOGIA, ETC.
VI. A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY, ASTROPHEL, A CHANNEL
PASSAGE AND OTHER
POEMS.
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
STUDIES IN SONG : A CENTURY OF ROUNDELS : SONNETS
ON
ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS : THE HEPTALOGIA :
ETC.
By
Algernon Charles Swinburne

1917
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
_First printed (Chatto), 1904_
_Reprinted 1904, '09, '10, '12_

_(Heinemann), 1917_
_London: William Heinemann, 1917_
A DARK MONTH
"La maison sans enfants!"--VICTOR HUGO.
I
A month without sight of the sun
Rising or reigning or setting

Through days without use of the day,
Who calls it the month of May?

The sense of the name is undone
And the sound of it fit for
forgetting.
We shall not feel if the sun rise,
We shall not care when it sets:
If a
nightingale make night's air
As noontide, why should we care?
Till
a light of delight that is done rise,
Extinguishing grey regrets;
Till a child's face lighten again
On the twilight of older faces;
Till a
child's voice fall as the dew
On furrows with heat parched through

And all but hopeless of grain,
Refreshing the desolate places--
Fall clear on the ears of us hearkening
And hungering for food of the
sound
And thirsting for joy of his voice:
Till the hearts in us hear
and rejoice,
And the thoughts of them doubting and darkening

Rejoice with a glad thing found.
When the heart of our gladness is gone,
What comfort is left with us
after?
When the light of our eyes is away,
What glory remains upon
May,
What blessing of song is thereon
If we drink not the light of

his laughter?
No small sweet face with the daytime
To welcome, warmer than noon!

No sweet small voice as a bird's
To bring us the day's first words!

Mid May for us here is not Maytime:
No summer begins with June.
A whole dead month in the dark,
A dawn in the mists that o'ercome
her
Stifled and smothered and sad--
Swift speed to it, barren and
bad!
And return to us, voice of the lark,
And remain with us,
sunlight of summer.
II
Alas, what right has the dawn to glimmer,
What right has the wind to
do aught but moan?
All the day should be dimmer
Because we are
left alone.
Yestermorn like a sunbeam present
Hither and thither a light step
smiled,
And made each place for us pleasant
With the sense or the
sight of a child.
But the leaves persist as before, and after
Our parting the dull day
still bears flowers;
And songs less bright than his laughter
Deride
us from birds in the bowers.
Birds, and blossoms, and sunlight only,
As though such folly sufficed
for spring!
As though the house were not lonely
For want of the
child its king!
III
Asleep and afar to-night my darling
Lies, and heeds not the night,
If
winds be stirring or storms be snarling;
For his sleep is its own sweet
light.
I sit where he sat beside me quaffing
The wine of story and song


Poured forth of immortal cups, and laughing
When mirth in the
draught grew strong.
I broke the gold of the words, to melt it
For hands but seven years old,

And they caught the tale as a bird, and felt it
More bright than
visible gold.
And he drank down deep, with his eyes broad beaming,
Here in this
room where I am,
The golden vintage of Shakespeare, gleaming
In
the silver vessels of Lamb.
Here by my hearth where he was I listen
For the shade of the sound
of a word,
Athirst for the birdlike eyes to glisten,
For the tongue to
chirp like a bird.
At the blast of battle, how broad they brightened,
Like fire in the
spheres of stars,
And clung to the pictured page, and lightened
As
keen as the heart of Mars!
At