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    A Channel Passage and Other Poems Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne—Vol VI
    A Channel Passage and Other Poems Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne—Vol VI
    A Channel Passage and Other Poems Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne—Vol VI
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    A Channel Passage and Other Poems Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne—Vol VI

    By Algernon Charles Swinburne

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 25, 2013
    A Channel Passage and Other Poems Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne—Vol VI

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      A Channel Passage and Other Poems Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne—Vol VI - Algernon Charles Swinburne

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Channel Passage and Other Poems, by

      Algernon Charles Swinburne

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: A Channel Passage and Other Poems

      Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles

      Swinburne--Vol VI

      Author: Algernon Charles Swinburne

      Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18871]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS ***

      Produced by Paul Murray, Lisa Reigel, and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

      Transcriber's Note:

      Greek words that may not display correctly in all browsers are transliterated in the text using popups like this: βιβλος

      . Position your mouse over the line to see the transliteration.

      A Channel Passage and Other Poems

      By

      Algernon Charles Swinburne

      TAKEN FROM

      THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE—Vol VI

      THE COLLECTED POETICAL WORKS OF ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

      VOL. VI

      A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY: ASTROPHEL: A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER TALES

      SWINBURNE'S POETICAL WORKS

      LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

      A MIDSUMMER HOLIDAY: ASTROPHEL: A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS

      By

      Algernon Charles Swinburne

      1917

      LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

      First printed (Chatto), 1904

      Reprinted 1904, '09, '10, '12

      (Heinemann), 1917

      London: William Heinemann, 1917

      A CHANNEL PASSAGE AND OTHER POEMS

      A CHANNEL PASSAGE

      AND OTHER POEMS

      IN MEMORY

      OF

      WILLIAM MORRIS

      AND

      EDWARD BURNE JONES

      A CHANNEL PASSAGE

      1855

      Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,

      Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:

      Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour

      Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower.

      Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the starbright air

      Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.

      Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?

      Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.

      Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky,

      Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die.

      Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire:

      Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night's desire.

      And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free:

      And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.

      All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught:

      And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught.

      And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind:

      And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind.

      Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East,

      Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death for priest.

      The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man born free

      Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a tropic sea.

      As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall,

      The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff's wall.

      Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath,

      And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death.

      Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy,

      Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's heart in a boy.

      For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime

      As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time.

      The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard,

      The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word,

      In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea,

      And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free.

      Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light

      From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white.

      The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade

      From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in the light they made.

      Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune,

      Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon.

      The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep

      As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep.

      All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know

      Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below.

      The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea's labour and rage,

      Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.

      No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare,

      Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air—

      Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and the sea's,

      Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men's knees.

      No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in dreams

      Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath's length seems—

      One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love that subsides

      As the glad

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