Songs of the Springtides and Birthday OdeTaken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon CharlesSwinburne—Vol. III
And these the loving light of song and love

Shall wrap and lap round and impend above,

Imperishable; and all springs born illume

Their sleep with brighter thoughts than wake the dove

To music, when the hillside winds resume

The marriage-song of heather-flower and broom

And all the joy thereof.

And hate the song too taught him: hate of all

That brings or holds in thrall

Of spirit or flesh, free-born ere God began,

The holy body and sacred soul of man.

And wheresoever a curse was or a chain,

A throne for torment or a crown for bane

Rose, moulded out of poor men's molten pain,

There, said he, should man's heaviest hate be set

Inexorably, to faint not or forget

Till the last warmth bled forth of the last vein

In flesh that none should call a king's again,

Seeing wolves and dogs and birds that plague-strike air

Leave the last bone of all the carrion bare.


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