A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems

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Title: A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems
Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne
Release Date: May 19, 2006 [EBook #18424]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY AND ***
Produced by Chuck Greif, Louise Hope, Thierry Alberto,?Henry Craig and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team?at http://www.pgdp.net
A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY
_AND OTHER POEMS_
BY
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
_THIRD EDITION_
London?CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1889
CONTENTS.
A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY:--
I. THE SEABOARD 3
II. A HAVEN 6
III. ON A COUNTRY ROAD 9
IV. THE MILL GARDEN 12
V. A SEA-MARK 16
VI. THE CLIFFSIDE PATH 19
VII. IN THE WATER 22
VIII. THE SUNBOWS 27
IX. ON THE VERGE 31

A NEW-YEAR ODE 39
LINES ON THE MONUMENT OF GIUSEPPE MAZZINI 66
LES CASQUETS 70
A BALLAD OF SARK 84
NINE YEARS OLD 87
AFTER A READING 94
MAYTIME IN MIDWINTER 100
A DOUBLE BALLAD OF AUGUST 105
HEARTSEASE COUNTRY 109
A BALLAD OF APPEAL 112
CRADLE SONGS 115
PELAGIUS 122
LOUIS BLANC 125
VOS DEOS LAUDAMUS 128
ON THE BICENTENARY OF CORNEILLE 132
IN SEPULCRETIS 134
LOVE AND SCORN 139
ON THE DEATH OF RICHARD DOYLE 142
IN MEMORY OF HENRY A. BRIGHT 143
A SOLITUDE 144
VICTOR HUGO: L'ARCHIPEL DE LA MANCHE 145
THE TWILIGHT OF THE LORDS 147
CLEAR THE WAY! 153
A WORD FOR THE COUNTRY 156
A WORD FOR THE NATION 167
A WORD FROM THE PSALMIST 176
A BALLAD AT PARTING 185
_A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY_
TO THEODORE WATTS
THE SEABOARD.
The sea is at ebb, and the sound of her utmost word?Is soft as the least wave's lapse in a still small reach.?From bay into bay, on quest of a goal deferred,?From headland ever to headland and breach to breach?Where earth gives ear to the message that all days preach?With changes of gladness and sadness that cheer and chide,?The lone way lures me along by a chance untried?That haply, if hope dissolve not and faith be whole,?Not all for nought shall I seek, with a dream for guide.?The goal that is not, and ever again the goal.
The trackless ways are untravelled of sail or bird;?The hoar wave hardly recedes from the soundless beach.?The silence of instant noon goes nigh to be heard,?The viewless void to be visible: all and each,?A closure of calm no clamour of storm can breach?Concludes and confines and absorbs them on either side,?All forces of light and of life and the live world's pride. Sands hardly ruffled of ripples that hardly roll?Seem ever to show as in reach of a swift brief stride?The goal that is not, and ever again the goal.
The waves are a joy to the seamew, the meads to the herd,?And a joy to the heart is a goal that it may not reach.?No sense that for ever the limits of sense engird,?No hearing or sight that is vassal to form or speech,?Learns ever the secret that