Quotes from Algernon Charles Swinburne

She knows not loves that kissed her She knows not where. Art thou the ghost, my sister, White sister there, Am I the ghost, who knows? My hand, a fallen rose, Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care.

Here now in his triumph where all things falter, Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread, As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead.

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour; The heavy white limbs, and the cruel Red mouth like a venomous flower; When these have gone by with their glories, What shall rest of thee then, what remain, O mystic and somber Delores, Our Lady of Pain?

Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver Sorrow.

The loves and hours of the life of a man, They are swift and sad, being born of the sea.

The highest spiritual quality, the noblest property of mind a man can have, is this of loyalty.

His life is a watch or a vision Between a sleep and a sleep.

To have read the greatest works of any great poet, to have beheld or heard the greatest works of any great painter or musician, is a possession added to the best things of life.

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Life is the lust of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day that we die.

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.

Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all.

In hawthorn-time the heart grows light.

We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; Today will die tomorrow; Time stoops to no man's lure.

Glory to Man in the highest! For Man is the master of things.

Time stoops to no man's lure.

My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain When Time and God give judgment.

Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time with a gift of tears, Grief with a glass that ran .

Love, as is told by the seers of old, Comes as a butterfly tipped with gold, Flutters and flies in sunlit skies, Weaving round hearts that were one time cold.

Marvellous mercies and infinite love.

Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives.

Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun's dart clove her: Love lies bleeding.

Love is more cruel than lust.

If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather.