A New-Year Ode

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

To Victor Hugo

I.

Twice twelve times have the springs of years refilled
  Their fountains from the river-head of time
Since by the green sea's marge, ere autumn chilled
  Waters and woods with sense of changing clime,
A great light rose upon my soul, and thrilled
  My spirit of sense with sense of spheres in chime,
Sound as of song wherewith a God would build
  Towers that no force of conquering war might climb.
      Wind shook the glimmering sea
      Even as my soul in me
  Was stirred with breath of mastery more sublime,
      Uplift and borne along
      More thunderous tides of song,
  Where wave rang back to wave more rapturous rhyme
    And world on world flashed lordlier light
Than ever lit the wandering ways of ships by night.

II.

The spirit of God, whose breath of life is song,
  Moved, though his word was human, on the face
Of those deep waters of the soul, too long
  Dumb, dark, and cold, that waited for the grace
Wherewith day kindles heaven: and as some throng
  Of quiring wings fills full some lone chill place
With sudden rush of life and joy, more strong
  Than death or sorrow or all night's darkling race,
      So was my heart, that heard
      All heaven in each deep word,
  Filled full with light of thought, and waxed apace
      Itself more wide and deep,
      To take that gift and keep
  And cherish while my days fulfilled their space;
    A record wide as earth and sea,
The Legend writ of Ages past and yet to be.

III.

As high the chant of Paradise and Hell
  Rose, when the soul of Milton gave it wings;
As wide the sweep of Shakespeare's empire fell,
  When life had bared for him her secret springs;
But not his various soul might range and dwell
  Amid the mysteries of the founts of things;
Nor Milton's range of rule so far might swell
  Across the kingdoms of forgotten kings.
      Men, centuries, nations, time,
      Life, death, love, trust, and crime,
  Rang record through the change of smitten strings
      That felt an exile's hand
      Sound hope for every land
  More loud than storm's cloud-sundering trumpet rings,
    And bid strong death for judgment rise,
And life bow down for judgment of his awless eyes.

IV.

And death, soul-stricken in his strength, resigned
  The keeping of the sepulchres to song;
And life was humbled, and his height of mind
  Brought lower than lies a grave-stone fallen along;
And like a ghost and like a God mankind
  Rose clad with light and darkness; weak and strong,
Clean and unclean, with eyes afire and blind,
  Wounded and whole, fast bound with cord and thong,
      Free; fair and foul, sin-stained,
      And sinless; crowned and chained;
  Fleet-limbed, and halting all his lifetime long;
      Glad of deep shame, and sad
      For shame's sake; wise, and mad;
  Girt round with love and hate of right and wrong;
    Armed and disarmed for sleep and strife;
Proud, and sore fear made havoc of his pride of life.

V.

Shadows and shapes of fable and storied sooth
  Rose glorious as with gleam of gold unpriced;
Eve, clothed with heavenly nakedness and youth
  That matched the morning's; Cain, self-sacrificed
On crime's first altar: legends wise as truth,
  And truth in legends deep embalmed and spiced;
The stars that saw the starlike eyes of Ruth,
  The grave that heard the clarion call of Christ.
      And higher than sorrow and mirth
      The heavenly song of earth
  Sprang, in such notes as might have well sufficed
      To still the storms of time
      And sin's contentious clime
  With peace renewed of life reparadised:
    Earth, scarred not yet with temporal scars;
Goddess of gods, our mother, chosen among the stars.

VI.

Earth fair as heaven, ere change and time set odds
  Between them, light and darkness know not when,
And fear, grown strong through panic periods,
  Crouched, a crowned worm, in faith's Lernean fen,
And love lay bound, and hope was scourged with rods,
  And death cried out from desert and from den,
Seeing all the heaven above him dark with gods
  And all the world about him marred of men.
      Cities that nought might purge
      Save the sea's whelming surge
  From all the pent pollutions in their pen
      Deep death drank down, and wrought,
      With wreck of all things, nought,
  That none might live of all their names again,
    Nor aught of all whose life is breath
Serve any God whose likeness was not like to death.

VII.

Till by the lips and eyes of one live nation
  The blind mute world found grace to see and speak,
And light watched rise a more divine creation
  At that more godlike utterance of the Greek,
Let there be freedom. Kings whose orient station
  Made pale the morn, and all her presage bleak,
Girt each with strengths of all his generation,
  Dim tribes of shamefaced soul and sun-swart cheek,
      Twice, urged with one desire,
      Son following hard on sire,
  With all the wrath of all a world to wreak,
      And all the rage of night
      Afire against the light
  Whose weakness makes her strong-winged empire weak,
    Stood up to unsay that saying, and fell
Too far for song, though song were thousand-tongued, to tell.

VIII.

From those deep echoes of the loud Ægean
  That rolled response whereat false fear was chid
By songs of joy sublime and Sophoclean,
  Fresh notes reverberate westward rose to bid
All wearier times take comfort from the pæan
  That tells the night what deeds the sunrise did,
Even till the lawns and torrents Pyrenean
  Ring answer from the records of the Cid.
      But never force of fountains
      From sunniest hearts of mountains
  Wherein the soul of hidden June was hid
      Poured forth so pure and strong
      Springs of reiterate song,
  Loud as the streams his fame was reared amid,
    More sweet than flowers they feed, and fair
With grace of lordlier sunshine and more lambent air.

IX.

A star more prosperous than the storm-clothed east's
  Clothed all the warm south-west with light like spring's,
When hands of strong men spread the wolves their feasts
  And from snake-spirited princes plucked the stings;
Ere earth, grown all one den of hurtling beasts,
  Had for her sunshine and her watersprings
The fire of hell that warmed the hearts of priests,
  The wells of blood that slaked the lips of kings.
      The shadow of night made stone
      Stood populous and alone,
  Dense with its dead and loathed of living things
      That draw not life from death,
      And as with hell's own breath
  And clangour of immitigable wings
    Vexed the fair face of Paris, made
Foul in its murderous imminence of sound and shade.

X.

And all these things were parcels of the vision
  That moved a cloud before his eyes, or stood
A tower half shattered by the strong collision
  Of spirit and spirit, of evil gods with good;
A ruinous wall rent through with grim division,
  Where time had marked his every monstrous mood
Of scorn and strength and pride and self-derision:
  The Tower of Things, that felt upon it brood
      Night, and about it cast
      The storm of all the past
  Now mute and forceless as a fire subdued:
      Yet through the rifted years
      And centuries veiled with tears
  And ages as with very death imbrued
    Freedom, whence hope and faith grow strong,
Smiles, and firm love sustains the indissoluble song.

XI.

Above the cloudy coil of days deceased,
  Its might of flight, with mists and storms beset,
Burns heavenward, as with heart and hope increased,
  For all the change of tempests, all the fret
Of frost or fire, keen fraud or force released,
  Wherewith the world once wasted knows not yet
If evil or good lit all the darkling east
  From the ardent moon of sovereign Mahomet.
      Sublime in work and will
      The song sublimer still
  Salutes him, ere the splendour shrink and set;
      Then with imperious eye
      And wing that sounds the sky
  Soars and sees risen as ghosts in concourse met
    The old world's seven elder wonders, firm
As dust and fixed as shadows, weaker than the worm.

XII.

High witness borne of knights high-souled and hoary
  Before death's face and empire's rings and glows
Even from the dust their life poured forth left gory,
  As the eagle's cry rings after from the snows
Supreme rebuke of shame clothed round with glory
  And hosts whose track the false crowned eagle shows;
More loud than sounds through stormiest song and story
  The laugh of slayers whose names the sea-wind knows;
      More loud than peals on land
      In many a red wet hand
  The clash of gold and cymbals as they close;
      Loud as the blast that meets
      The might of marshalled fleets
  And sheds it into shipwreck, like a rose
    Blown from a child's light grasp in sign
That earth's high lords are lords not over breeze and brine.

XIII.

Above the dust and mire of man's dejection
  The wide-winged spirit of song resurgent sees
His wingless and long-labouring resurrection
  Up the arduous heaven, by sore and strange degrees
Mount, and with splendour of the soul's reflection
  Strike heaven's dark sovereign down upon his knees,
Pale in the light of orient insurrection,
  And dumb before the almightier lord's decrees
      Who bade him be of yore,
      Who bids him be no more:
  And all earth's heart is quickened as the sea's,
      Even as when sunrise burns
      The very sea's heart yearns
  That heard not on the midnight-walking breeze
    The wail that woke with evensong
From hearts of poor folk watching all the darkness long.

XIV.

Dawn and the beams of sunbright song illume
  Love, with strange children at her piteous breast,
By grace of weakness from the grave-mouthed gloom
  Plucked, and by mercy lulled to living rest,
Soft as the nursling's nigh the grandsire's tomb
  That fell on sleep, a bird of rifled nest;
Soft as the lips whose smile unsaid the doom
  That gave their sire to violent death's arrest.
      Even for such love's sake strong,
      Wrath fires the inveterate song
  That bids hell gape for one whose bland mouth blest
      All slayers and liars that sighed
      Prayer as they slew and lied
  Till blood had clothed his priesthood as a vest,
    And hears, though darkness yet be dumb,
The silence of the trumpet of the wrath to come.

XV.

Nor lacked these lights of constellated age
  A star among them fed with life more dire,
Lit with his bloodied fame, whose withering rage
  Made earth for heaven's sake one funereal pyre
And life in faith's name one appointed stage
  For death to purge the souls of men with fire.
Heaven, earth, and hell on one thrice tragic page
  Mixed all their light and darkness: one man's lyre
      Gave all their echoes voice;
      Bade rose-cheeked love rejoice,
  And cold-lipped craft with ravenous fear conspire,
      And fire-eyed faith smite hope
      Dead, seeing enthroned as Pope
  And crowned of heaven on earth at hell's desire
    Sin, called by death's incestuous name
Borgia: the world that heard it flushed and quailed with shame.

XVI.

Another year, and hope triumphant heard
  The consummating sound of song that spake
Conclusion to the multitudinous word
  Whose expectation held her spirit awake
Till full delight for twice twelve years deferred
  Bade all souls entering eat and drink, and take
A third time comfort given them, that the third
  Might heap the measure up of twain, and make
      The sinking year sublime
      Among all sons of time
  And fan in all men's memories for his sake.
      Each thought of ours became
      Fire, kindling from his flame,
  And music widening in his wide song's wake.
    Yea, and the world bore witness here
How great a light was risen upon this darkening year.

XVII.

It was the dawn of winter: sword in sheath,
  Change, veiled and mild, came down the gradual air
With cold slow smiles that hid the doom beneath.
  Five days to die in yet were autumn's, ere
The last leaf withered from his flowerless wreath.
  South, east, and north, our skies were all blown bare,
But westward over glimmering holt and heath
  Cloud, wind, and light had made a heaven more fair
      Than ever dream or truth
      Showed earth in time's keen youth
  When men with angels communed unaware.
      Above the sun's head, now
      Veiled even to the ardent brow,
  Rose two sheer wings of sundering cloud, that were
    As a bird's poised for vehement flight,
Full-fledged with plumes of tawny fire and hoar grey light.

XVIII.

As midnight black, as twilight brown, they spread,
  But feathered thick with flame that streaked and lined
Their living darkness, ominous else of dread,
  From south to northmost verge of heaven inclined
Most like some giant angel's, whose bent head
  Bowed earthward, as with message for mankind
Of doom or benediction to be shed
  From passage of his presence. Far behind,
      Even while they seemed to close,
      Stoop, and take flight, arose
  Above them, higher than heavenliest thought may find
      In light or night supreme
      Of vision or of dream,
  Immeasurable of men's eyes or mounting mind,
    Heaven, manifest in manifold
Light of pure pallid amber, cheered with fire of gold.

XIX.

And where the fine gold faded all the sky
  Shone green as the outer sea when April glows,
Inlaid with flakes and feathers fledged to fly
  Of cloud suspense in rapture and repose,
With large live petals, broad as love bids lie
  Full open when the sun salutes the rose,
And small rent sprays wherewith the heavens most high
  Were strewn as autumn strews the garden-close
      With ruinous roseleaves whirled
      About their wan chill world,
  Through wind-worn bowers that now no music knows,
      Spoil of the dim dusk year
      Whose utter night is near,
  And near the flower of dawn beyond it blows;
    Till east and west were fire and light,
As though the dawn to come had flushed the coming night.

XX.

The highways paced of men that toil or play,
  The byways known of none but lonely feet,
Were paven of purple woven of night and day
  With hands that met as hands of friends might meet—
As though night's were not lifted up to slay
  And day's had waxed not weaker. Peace more sweet
Than music, light more soft than shadow, lay
  On downs and moorlands wan with day's defeat,
      That watched afar above
      Life's very rose of love
  Let all its lustrous leaves fall, fade, and fleet,
      And fill all heaven and earth
      Full as with fires of birth
  Whence time should feed his years with light and heat:
    Nay, not life's, but a flower more strong
Than life or time or death, love's very rose of song.

XXI.

Song visible, whence all men's eyes were lit
  With love and loving wonder: song that glowed
Through cloud and change on souls that knew not it
  And hearts that wist not whence their comfort flowed,
Whence fear was lightened of her fever-fit,
  Whence anguish of her life-compelling load.
Yea, no man's head whereon the fire alit,
  Of all that passed along that sunset road
      Westward, no brow so drear,
      No eye so dull of cheer,
  No face so mean whereon that light abode,
      But as with alien pride
      Strange godhead glorified
  Each feature flushed from heaven with fire that showed
    The likeness of its own life wrought
By strong transfiguration as of living thought.

XXII.

Nor only clouds of the everlasting sky,
  Nor only men that paced that sunward way
To the utter bourne of evening, passed not by
  Unblest or unillumined: none might say,
Of all things visible in the wide world's eye,
  That all too low for all that grace it lay:
The lowliest lakelets of the moorland nigh,
  The narrowest pools where shallowest wavelets play,
      Were filled from heaven above
      With light like fire of love,
  With flames and colours like a dawn in May,
      As hearts that lowlier live
      With light of thoughts that give
  Light from the depth of souls more deep than they
      Through song's or story's kindling scroll,
The splendour of the shadow that reveals the soul.

XXIII.

For, when such light is in the world, we share,
  All of us, all the rays thereof that shine:
Its presence is alive in the unseen air,
  Its fire within our veins as quickening wine;
A spirit is shed on all men everywhere,
  Known or not known of all men for divine.
Yea, as the sun makes heaven, that light makes fair
  All souls of ours, all lesser souls than thine,
      Priest, prophet, seer and sage,
      Lord of a subject age
  That bears thy seal upon it for a sign;
      Whose name shall be thy name,
      Whose light thy light of fame,
  The light of love that makes thy soul a shrine;
    Whose record through all years to be
Shall bear this witness written—that its womb bare thee.

XXIV.

O mystery, whence to one man's hand was given
  Power upon all things of the spirit, and might
Whereby the veil of all the years was riven
  And naked stood the secret soul of night!
O marvel, hailed of eyes whence cloud is driven,
  That shows at last wrong reconciled with right
By death divine of evil and sin forgiven!
  O light of song, whose fire is perfect light!
      No speech, no voice, no thought,
      No love, avails us aught
  For service of thanksgiving in his sight
      Who hath given us all for ever
      Such gifts that man gave never
  So many and great since first Time's wings took flight.
    Man may not praise a spirit above
Man's: life and death shall praise him: we can only love.

XXV.

Life, everlasting while the worlds endure,
  Death, self-abased before a power more high,
Shall bear one witness, and their word stand sure,
  That not till time be dead shall this man die
Love, like a bird, comes loyal to his lure;
  Fame flies before him, wingless else to fly.
A child's heart toward his kind is not more pure,
  An eagle's toward the sun no lordlier eye.
      Awe sweet as love and proud
      As fame, though hushed and bowed,
  Yearns toward him silent as his face goes by:
      All crowns before his crown
      Triumphantly bow down,
  For pride that one more great than all draws nigh:
    All souls applaud, all hearts acclaim,
One heart benign, one soul supreme, one conquering name.


Monadnock Valley Press > Swinburne