文档介绍：THE TALE OF BALEN
THE TALE OF BALEN
Algernon Charles Swinburne
1
THE TALE OF BALEN
DEDICATION
TO MY MOTHER
Love that holds life and death in fee, Deep as the clear unsounded sea
And sweet as life or death can be, Lays here my hope, my heart, and me
Before you, silent, in a song. Since the old wild tale, made new, found
grace, When half sung through, before your face, It needs must live a
springtide space, While April suns grow strong.
March 24, 1896.
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THE TALE OF BALEN
I
In hawthorn-time the heart grows light, The world is sweet in sound
and sight, Glad thoughts and birds take flower and flight, The heather
kindles toward the light, The whin is frankincense and flame. And be it for
strife or be it for love The falcon quickens as the dove When earth is
touched from heaven above With joy that knows no name.
And glad in spirit and sad in soul With dream and doubt of days that
roll As waves that race and find no goal Rode on by bush and brake and
bole A northern child of earth and sea. The pride of life before him lay
Radiant: the heavens of night and day Shone less than shone before his
way His ways and days to be.
And all his life of blood and breath Sang out within him: time and
death Were even as words a dreamer saith When sleep within him
h, And light and life and spring were one. The steed between his
knees that sprang, The moors and woods that shone and sang, The hours
where through the spring's breath rang, Seemed ageless as the sun.
But alway through the bounteous bloom That earth gives thanks if
heaven illume His soul forefelt a shadow of doom, His heart foreknew a
gloomier gloom Than closes all men's equal ways, Albeit the spirit of life's
light spring With pride of heart upheld him, king And lord of hours like
snakes that sting And nights that darken days.
And as the strong spring round him grew Stronger, and all blithe winds
that blew Blither, and flowers that flowered anew More glad of sun and air
and dew