<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=342015" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Laus Veneris</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Asleep or waking is it? for her neck, <br>Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck <br>Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out; <br>Soft, and stung softly — fairer for a fleck. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>But though my lips shut sucking on the place, <br>There is no vein at work upon her face; <br>Her eyelids are so peaceable, no doubt <br>Deep sleep has warmed her blood through all its ways. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Lo, this is she that was the world's delight; <br>The old grey years were parcels of her might; <br>The strewings of the ways wherein she trod <br>Were the twain seasons of the day and night. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Lo, she was thus when her clear limbs enticed <br>All lips that now grow sad with kissing Christ, <br>Stained with blood fallen from the feet of God, <br>The feet and hands whereat our souls were priced. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Alas, Lord, surely thou art great and fair. <br>But lo her wonderfully woven hair! <br>And thou didst heal us with thy piteous kiss; <br>But see now, Lord; her mouth is lovelier. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>She is right fair; what hath she done to thee? <br>Nay, fair Lord Christ, lift up thine eyes and see; <br>Had now thy mother such a lip — like this? <br>Thou knowest how sweet a thing it is to me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Inside the Horsel here the air is hot; <br>Right little peace one hath for it, God wot; <br>The scented dusty daylight burns the air, <br>And my heart chokes me till I hear it not. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Behold, my Venus, my soul's body, lies <br>With my love laid upon her garment-wise, <br>Feeling my love in all her limbs and hair <br>And shed between her eyelids through her eyes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>She holds my heart in her sweet open hands <br>Hanging asleep; hard by her head there stands, <br>Crowned with gilt thorns and clothed with flesh like fire, <br>Love, wan as foam blown up the salt burnt sands — </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Hot as the brackish waifs of yellow spume <br>That shift and steam — loose clots of arid fume <br>From the sea's panting mouth of dry desire; <br>There stands he, like one labouring at a loom. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The warp holds fast across; and every thread <br>That makes the woof up has dry specks of red; <br>Always the shuttle cleaves clean through, and he <br>Weaves with the hair of many a ruined head. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Love is not glad nor sorry, as I deem; <br>Labouring he dreams, and labours in the dream, <br>Till when the spool is finished, lo I see <br>His web, reeled off, curls and goes out like steam. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Night falls like fire; the heavy lights run low, <br>And as they drop, my blood and body so <br>Shake as the flame shakes, full of days and hours <br>That sleep not neither weep they as they go. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah yet would God this flesh of mine might be <br>Where air might wash and long leaves cover me, <br>Where tides of grass break into foam of flowers, <br>Or where the wind's feet shine along the sea. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah yet would God that stems and roots were bred <br>Out of my weary body and my head, <br>That sleep were sealed upon me with a seal, <br>And I were as the least of all his dead. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Would God my blood were dew to feed the grass, <br>Mine ears made deaf and mine eyes blind as glass, <br>My body broken as a turning wheel, <br>And my mouth stricken ere it saith Alas! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah God, that love were as a flower or flame, <br>That life were as the naming of a name, <br>That death were not more pitiful than desire, <br>That these things were not one thing and the same! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Behold now, surely somewhere there is death: <br>For each man hath some space of years, he saith, <br>A little space of time ere time expire, <br>A little day, a little way of breath. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And lo, between the sundawn and the sun, <br>His day's work and his night's work are undone; <br>And lo, between the nightfall and the light, <br>He is not, and none knoweth of such an one. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah God, that I were as all souls that be, <br>As any herb or leaf of any tree, <br>As men that toil through hours of labouring night, <br>As bones of men under the deep sharp sea. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Outside it must be winter among men; <br>For at the gold bars of the gates again <br>I heard all night and all the hours of it <br>The wind's wet wings and fingers drip with rain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Knights gather, riding sharp for cold; I know <br>The ways and woods are strangled with the snow; <br>And with short song the maidens spin and sit <br>Until Christ's birthnight, lily-like, arow. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The scent and shadow shed about me make <br>The very soul in all my senses ache; <br>The hot hard night is fed upon my breath, <br>And sleep beholds me from afar awake. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Alas, but surely where the hills grow deep, <br>Or where the wild ways of the sea are steep, <br>Or in strange places somewhere there is death, <br>And on death's face the scattered hair of sleep. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>There lover-like with lips and limbs that meet <br>They lie, they pluck sweet fruit of life and eat; <br>But me the hot and hungry days devour, <br>And in my mouth no fruit of theirs is sweet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>No fruit of theirs, but fruit of my desire, <br>For her love's sake whose lips through mine respire; <br>Her eyelids on her eyes like flower on flower, <br>Mine eyelids on mine eyes like fire on fire. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So lie we, not as sleep that lies by death, <br>With heavy kisses and with happy breath; <br>Not as man lies by woman, when the bride <br>Laughs low for love's sake and the words he saith. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For she lies, laughing low with love; she lies <br>And turns his kisses on her lips to sighs, <br>To sighing sound of lips unsatisfied, <br>And the sweet tears are tender with her eyes. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah, not as they, but as the souls that were <br>Slain in the old time, having found her fair; <br>Who, sleeping with her lips upon their eyes, <br>Heard sudden serpents hiss across her hair. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Their blood runs round the roots of time like rain: <br>She casts them forth and gathers them again; <br>With nerve and bone she weaves and multiplies <br>Exceeding pleasure out of extreme pain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Her little chambers drip with flower-like red, <br>Her girdles, and the chaplets of her head, <br>Her armlets and her anklets; with her feet <br>She tramples all that winepress of the dead. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Her gateways smoke with fume of flowers and fires, <br>With loves burnt out and unassuaged desires; <br>Between her lips the steam of them is sweet, <br>The languor in her ears of many lyres. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Her beds are full of perfume and sad sound, <br>Her doors are made with music, and barred round <br>With sighing and with laughter and with tears, <br>With tears whereby strong souls of men are bound. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>There is the knight Adonis that was slain; <br>With flesh and blood she chains him for a chain; <br>The body and the spirit in her ears <br>Cry, for her lips divide him vein by vein. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yea, all she slayeth; yea, every man save me; <br>Me, love, thy lover that must cleave to thee <br>Till the ending of the days and ways of earth, <br>The shaking of the sources of the sea. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Me, most forsaken of all souls that fell; <br>Me, satiated with things insatiable; <br>Me, for whose sake the extreme hell makes mirth, <br>Yea, laughter kindles at the heart of hell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Alas thy beauty! for thy mouth's sweet sake <br>My soul is bitter to me, my limbs quake <br>As water, as the flesh of men that weep, <br>As their heart's vein whose heart goes nigh to break. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah God, that sleep with flower-sweet finger-tips <br>Would crush the fruit of death upon my lips; <br>Ah God, that death would tread the grapes of sleep <br>And wring their juice upon me as it drips. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>There is no change of cheer for many days, <br>But change of chimes high up in the air, that sways <br>Rung by the running fingers of the wind; <br>And singing sorrows heard on hidden ways. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Day smiteth day in twain, night sundereth night, <br>And on mine eyes the dark sits as the light; <br>Yea, Lord, thou knowest I know not, having sinned, <br>If heaven be clean or unclean in thy sight. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yea, as if earth were sprinkled over me, <br>Such chafed harsh earth as chokes a sandy sea, <br>Each pore doth yearn, and the dried blood thereof <br>Gasps by sick fits, my heart swims heavily, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>There is a feverish famine in my veins; <br>Below her bosom, where a crushed grape stains <br>The white and blue, there my lips caught and clove <br>An hour since, and what mark of me remains? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I dare not always touch her, lest the kiss <br>Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss, <br>Brief bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin; <br>Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Sin, is it sin whereby men's souls are thrust <br>Into the pit? yet had I a good trust <br>To save my soul before it slipped therein, <br>Trod under by the fire-shod feet of lust. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For if mine eyes fail and my soul takes breath, <br>I look between the iron sides of death <br>Into sad hell where all sweet love hath end, <br>All but the pain that never finisheth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>There are the naked faces of great kings, <br>The singing folk with all their lute-playings; <br>There when one cometh he shall have to friend <br>The grave that covets and the worm that clings. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>There sit the knights that were so great of hand, <br>The ladies that were queens of fair green land, <br>Grown grey and black now, brought unto the dust, <br>Soiled, without raiment, clad about with sand. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>There is one end for all of them; they sit <br>Naked and sad, they drink the dregs of it, <br>Trodden as grapes in the wine-press of lust, <br>Trampled and trodden by the fiery feet. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I see the marvellous mouth whereby there fell <br>Cities and people whom the gods loved well, <br>Yet for her sake on them the fire gat hold, <br>And for their sakes on her the fire of hell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And softer than the Egyptian lote-leaf is, <br>The queen whose face was worth the world to kiss, <br>Wearing at breast a suckling snake of gold; <br>And large pale lips of strong Semiramis, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Curled like a tiger's that curl back to feed; <br>Red only where the last kiss made them bleed; <br>Her hair most thick with many a carven gem, <br>Deep in the mane, great-chested, like a steed. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yea, with red sin the faces of them shine; <br>But in all these there was no sin like mine; <br>No, not in all the strange great sins of them <br>That made the wine-press froth and foam with wine. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For I was of Christ's choosing, I God's knight, <br>No blinkard heathen stumbling for scant light; <br>I can well see, for all the dusty days <br>Gone past, the clean great time of goodly fight. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I smell the breathing battle sharp with blows, <br>With shriek of shafts and snapping short of bows; <br>The fair pure sword smites out in subtle ways, <br>Sounds and long lights are shed between the rows </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Of beautiful mailed men; the edged light slips, <br>Most like a snake that takes short breath and dips <br>Sharp from the beautifully bending head, <br>With all its gracious body lithe as lips </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>That curl in touching you; right in this wise <br>My sword doth, seeming fire in mine own eyes, <br>Leaving all colours in them brown and red <br>And flecked with death; then the keen breaths like sighs, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The caught-up choked dry laughters following them, <br>When all the fighting face is grown a flame <br>For pleasure, and the pulse that stuns the ears, <br>And the heart's gladness of the goodly game. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Let me think yet a little; I do know <br>These things were sweet, but sweet such years ago, <br>Their savour is all turned now into tears; <br>Yea, ten years since, where the blue ripples blow, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The blue curled eddies of the blowing Rhine, <br>I felt the sharp wind shaking grass and vine <br>Touch my blood too, and sting me with delight <br>Through all this waste and weary body of mine </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>That never feels clear air; right gladly then <br>I rode alone, a great way off my men, <br>And heard the chiming bridle smite and smite, <br>And gave each rhyme thereof some rhyme again, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Till my song shifted to that iron one; <br>Seeing there rode up between me and the sun <br>Some certain of my foe's men, for his three <br>White wolves across their painted coats did run. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>The first red-bearded, with square cheeks — alack, <br>I made my knave's blood turn his beard to black; <br>The slaying of him was a joy to see: <br>Perchance too, when at night he came not back, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Some woman fell a-weeping, whom this thief <br>Would beat when he had drunken; yet small grief <br>Hath any for the ridding of such knaves; <br>Yea, if one wept, I doubt her teen was brief. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>This bitter love is sorrow in all lands, <br>Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands, <br>Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves; <br>A sign across the head of the world he stands, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>An one that hath a plague-mark on his brows; <br>Dust and spilt blood do track him to his house <br>Down under earth; sweet smells of lip and cheek, <br>Like a sweet snake's breath made more poisonous </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>With chewing of some perfumed deadly grass, <br>Are shed all round his passage if he pass, <br>And their quenched savour leaves the whole soul weak, <br>Sick with keen guessing whence the perfume was. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>As one who hidden in deep sedge and reeds <br>Smells the rare scent made where a panther feeds, <br>And tracking ever slotwise the warm smell <br>Is snapped upon by the sweet mouth and bleeds, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>His head far down the hot sweet throat of her — <br>So one tracks love, whose breath is deadlier, <br>And lo, one springe and you are fast in hell, <br>Fast as the gin's grip of a wayfarer. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I think now, as the heavy hours decease <br>One after one, and bitter thoughts increase <br>One upon one, of all sweet finished things; <br>The breaking of the battle; the long peace </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Wherein we sat clothed softly, each man's hair <br>Crowned with green leaves beneath white hoods of vair; <br>The sounds of sharp spears at great tourneyings, <br>And noise of singing in the late sweet air. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I sang of love too, knowing nought thereof; <br>'Sweeter,' I said, 'the little laugh of love <br>Than tears out of the eyes of Magdalen, <br>Or any fallen feather of the Dove. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'The broken little laugh that spoils a kiss, <br>The ache of purple pulses, and the bliss <br>Of blinded eyelids that expand again — <br>Love draws them open with those lips of his, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Lips that cling hard till the kissed face has grown <br>Of one same fire and colour with their own; <br>Then ere one sleep, appeased with sacrifice, <br>Where his lips wounded, there his lips atone.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I sang these things long since and knew them not; <br>'Lo, here is love, or there is love, God wot, <br>This man and that finds favour in his eyes,' <br>I said, 'but I, what guerdon have I got? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'The dust of praise that is blown everywhere <br>In all men's faces with the common air; <br>The bay-leaf that wants chafing to be sweet <br>Before they wind it in a singer's hair.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So that one dawn I rode forth sorrowing; <br>I had no hope but of some evil thing, <br>And so rode slowly past the windy wheat <br>And past the vineyard and the water-spring, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Up to the Horsel. A great elder-tree <br>Held back its heaps of flowers to let me see <br>The ripe tall grass, and one that walked therein, <br>Naked, with hair shed over to the knee. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>She walked between the blossom and the grass; <br>I knew the beauty of her, what she was, <br>The beauty of her body and her sin, <br>And in my flesh the sin of hers, alas! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Alas! for sorrow is all the end of this. <br>O sad kissed mouth, how sorrowful it is! <br>O breast whereat some suckling sorrow clings, <br>Red with the bitter blossom of a kiss! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah, with blind lips I felt for you, and found <br>About my neck your hands and hair enwound, <br>The hands that stifle and the hair that stings, <br>I felt them fasten sharply without sound. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yea, for my sin I had great store of bliss: <br>Rise up, make answer for me, let thy kiss <br>Seal my lips hard from speaking of my sin, <br>Lest one go mad to hear how sweet it is. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yet I waxed faint with fume of barren bowers, <br>And murmuring of the heavy-headed hours; <br>And let the dove's beak fret and peck within <br>My lips in vain, and Love shed fruitless flowers. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>So that God looked upon me when your hands <br>Were hot about me; yea, God brake my bands <br>To save my soul alive, and I came forth <br>Like a man blind and naked in strange lands </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>That hears men laugh and weep, and knows not whence <br>Nor wherefore, but is broken in his sense; <br>Howbeit I met folk riding from the north <br>Towards Rome, to purge them of their souls' offence, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And rode with them, and spake to none; the day <br>Stunned me like lights upon some wizard way, <br>And ate like fire mine eyes and mine eyesight; <br>So rode I, hearing all these chant and pray, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And marvelled; till before us rose and fell <br>White cursed hills, like outer skirts of hell <br>Seen where men's eyes look through the day to night, <br>Like a jagged shell's lips, harsh, untunable, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Blown in between by devils' wrangling breath; <br>Nathless we won well past that hell and death, <br>Down to the sweet land where all airs are good, <br>Even unto Rome where God's grace tarrieth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Then came each man and worshipped at his knees <br>Who in the Lord God's likeness bears the keys <br>To bind or loose, and called on Christ's shed blood, <br>And so the sweet-souled father gave him ease. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>But when I came I fell down at his feet, <br>Saying, 'Father, though the Lord's blood be right sweet, <br>The spot it takes not off the panther's skin, <br>Nor shall an Ethiop's stain be bleached with it. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Lo, I have sinned and have spat out at God, <br>Wherefore his hand is heavier and his rod <br>More sharp because of mine exceeding sin, <br>And all his raiment redder than bright blood </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Before mine eyes; yea, for my sake I wot <br>The heat of hell is waxen seven times hot <br>Through my great sin.' Then spake he some sweet word, <br>Giving me cheer; which thing availed me not; </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yea, scarce I wist if such indeed were said; <br>For when I ceased — lo, as one newly dead <br>Who hears a great cry out of hell, I heard <br>The crying of his voice across my head. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>'Until this dry shred staff, that hath no whit <br>Of leaf nor bark, bear blossom and smell sweet, <br>Seek thou not any mercy in God's sight, <br>For so long shalt thou be cast out from it.' </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yea, what if dried-up stems wax red and green, <br>Shall that thing be which is not nor has been? <br>Yea, what if sapless bark wax green and white, <br>Shall any good fruit grow upon my sin? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Nay, though sweet fruit were plucked of a dry tree, <br>And though men drew sweet waters of the sea, <br>There should not grow sweet leaves on this dead stem, <br>This waste wan body and shaken soul of me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yea, though God search it warily enough, <br>There is not one sound thing in all thereof; <br>Though he search all my veins through, searching them <br>He shall find nothing whole therein but love. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For I came home right heavy, with small cheer, <br>And lo my love, mine own soul's heart, more dear <br>Than mine own soul, more beautiful than God, <br>Who hath my being between the hands of her — </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Fair still, but fair for no man saving me, <br>As when she came out of the naked sea <br>Making the foam as fire whereon she trod, <br>And as the inner flower of fire was she. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Yea, she laid hold upon me, and her mouth <br>Clove unto mine as soul to body doth, <br>And, laughing, made her lips luxurious; <br>Her hair had smells of all the sunburnt south, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Strange spice and flower, strange savour of crushed fruit, <br>And perfume the swart kings tread underfoot <br>For pleasure when their minds wax amorous, <br>Charred frankincense and grated sandal-root. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>And I forgot fear and all weary things, <br>All ended prayers and perished thanksgivings, <br>Feeling her face with all her eager hair <br>Cleave to me, clinging as a fire that clings </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>To the body and to the raiment, burning them; <br>As after death I know that such-like flame <br>Shall cleave to me for ever; yea, what care, <br>Albeit I burn then, having felt the same? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Ah love, there is no better life than this; <br>To have known love, how bitter a thing it is, <br>And afterward be cast out of God's sight; <br>Yea, these that know not, shall they have such bliss </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>High up in barren heaven before his face <br>As we twain in the heavy-hearted place, <br>Remembering love and all the dead delight, <br>And all that time was sweet with for a space? </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>For till the thunder in the trumpet be, <br>Soul may divide from body, but not we <br>One from another; I hold thee with my hand, <br>I let mine eyes have all their will of thee, </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>I seal myself upon thee with my might, <br>Abiding alway out of all men's sight <br>Until God loosen over sea and land <br>The thunder of the trumpets of the night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Algernon+Charles+Swinburne">Algernon Charles Swinburne</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=342015" data-title="Laus Veneris de Algernon Charles Swinburne" data-description="Asleep or waking is it? for her neck, Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out; Soft, and stung softly — fairer for a fleck. But though my lips shut sucking on the place, There is no vein a..."></div> </div> </div>

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