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
? 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 the touch of laughter, how swift it twittered?The shrillest music on earth;?How the lithe limbs laughed and the whole child glittered With radiant riot of mirth!
Our Shakespeare now, as a man dumb-stricken,?Stands silent there on the shelf:?And my thoughts, that had song in the heart of them, sicken, And relish not Shakespeare's self.
And my mood grows