Astrophel and Other PoemsTaken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon CharlesSwinburne, Vol. VI
We know thee present and latent, the lord of man;

In the murmuring of doves, in the clamouring of winds that call

And wolves that howl for their prey; in the midnight's pall,

In the naked and nymph-like feet of the dawn, O Pan,

And in each life living, O thou the God who art all.

Smiling and singing, wailing and wringing of hands,

Laughing and weeping, watching and sleeping, still

Proclaim but and prove but thee, as the shifted sands

Speak forth and show but the strength of the sea's wild will

That sifts and grinds them as grain in the storm-wind's mill.

In thee is the doom that falls and the doom that stands:

The tempests utter thy word, and the stars fulfil.

[Pg 134]

Where Etna shudders with passion and pain volcanic

That rend her heart as with anguish that rends a man's,

Where Typho labours, and finds not his thews Titanic,

In breathless torment that ever the flame's breath fans,

Men felt and feared thee of old, whose pastoral clans

Were given to the charge of thy keeping; and soundless panic

Held fast the woodland whose depths and whose heights were Pan's.


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